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PKICE IQ CESTS 


By MRS. HENRY WOOD 


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MAN OF HIS WORD 


By W. E. NORRIS 


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lie Seaside Library, Pocket Edition, Issued Tn-weeidy. By Subscription $36 per annum, 
ighted 1884, by George Munro— Entered at the Post Office at New York at second class rates.— Nov. 22, 188 






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The Surgeon’s Daughters 

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- By MRS. HENRY WOOD. 




A Man of His Word 


By W. E. NORRIS. 


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THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS 


♦ 


CHAPTER 1. 

LOVE. 

Do you happen to be acquainted with the Faithful City of Worces- 
ter? The loyal city which, in its true-heartedness, remained firm 
to its unhappy king, Charles the Martyr, with his son, when all 
other of his towns had turned against him, and so earned the right 
to be called Faithful for ever? If a stranger, you cannot do better 
than pay a day’s visit to it: .you may go to many a town less worth 
seeing. While your dinner is preparing at the Star and Garter — at 
which dinner you must beg the host not to forget the Severn salmon, 
and the far famed lampreys, fatal in his day to the First Henry— go 
on a tour of inspection through the city. Taking its cathedral first: 
and when you have looked at its renovated grandeur; at its cold, 
handsome monuments, erected to the memory of those who have 
long been colder than they are, and admired its beauteous east win- 
dow of many colors, step into the cloisters, where the irreverent 
Cromwell stabled his horses, and there pause awhile over the grave- 
stone bearing the solitary inscription “ Miserrimus,” and speculate 
upon its unhappy tenant’s life and fate. Then, passing through 
the “ Green,” and the gate of Edgar Tower, turn to Chamberlain’s 
China Factory — it has passed into other hands now, but the name 
“ Chamberlain ” still clings to it, and will cling, while presenl gen- 
erations shall exist. The Worcester china is spoken of all over the 
world, and it deserves its reputation: in point of art and refined 
beauty, it yields to none. Yon.may have been all the way to Pekin, 
and bought up the curious teacups and saucers there, so much 
lauded to untraveled people; you may be at home in all the splen- 
dors of all the departments of the S&vres Porcelaine; but you see now 
they cannot surpass, if they can vie with, that produced at Worces- 
ter. Turning about again, from the China works, to stand in front 
of the Guildhall, you admire its fagade, its statues, and its conspicu- 
ous motto, “ Floreat Semper, Fidelis Civitas.” Did you ever hear 
the anecdote connected with its body-corporate of other days, when 
George the Third was king? His majesty visited the Faithful City, 
staying in it a few days: and this most loyal corporation exercised 
their brains devising ways and means of showing their fealty • as, 
between ourselves, corporations do still: which, it is said, were ’well 
and duly appreciated. \Yhen the addressing, and the feasting, and 
all the rest of it was over, and the king was preparing to leave the 
town, one last and final attention was projected by the body-corpo- 


4 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 


rate. A deputation of them waited on their august guest, obtained 
au audience, and solicited ‘ ‘ the honor of escorting his majesty to 
the gallows.’ * The king stared, laughed, and thought he would 
rather be excused. They had omitted to explain that they merely 
wished to pay his majesty the respect of attending him out of the 
town as far as the spot wheie the gallows for the condemned crim- 
inals stood. It was at the top of Red Hill. The king gave permis- 
sion to that. 

The inhabitants of Worcester are said to deserve the initials P. P. 
P. affixed to their names, denoting Poor, Proud, and Pretty. 
Whether, take them as a whole, they are poor, I cannot say; proud 
they undoubtedly are, for that is the characteristic of all cathedral 
towns, and you certainly cannot walk through the city without being- 
struck with the remarkably pretty faces of the girls you meet. 

At a very long -past period, so long that we elderly people can but 
just remember it, there lived in Worcester a surgeon and general 
practitioner, Mr. George Juniper. He was a little man, with a fair 
complexion and curly Tight hair; skillful, kind-heaited, sensible, and 
much esteemed by his fellow citizens. He had been in practice many 
years and his connection was extensive; but he was no longer young, 
and began to feel the need of a little rest and less responsibility. 
Mr. Juniper always kept a qualified assistant, who was generally a 
young man; though latterly he had not been fortunate in respect to 
his assistants. One of them sent a patient poison in mistake for 
Epsom salts, which nearly cost the lady her life; another grew 
fonder of the billiard table than he was of the surgery; and a third 
made love too conspicuously to the surgeon’s daughters. So that of 
assistants Mr. Juniper grew weary, and thought he must try some 
other mode of help. 

George Juniper rejoiced in seven daughters. “ Seven daughters,” 
cries the aghast old bachelor, reading this through 11 is spectacles; 
“ was he mad? Well, sometimes they did nearly enough to drive 
him so, had he been less good-humored anti indulgent. But he 
could not lay the claim of paternity to all the seven. It had hap- 
pened in this way: 

There resided in Worcester, again many years back even from this, 
an old gentleman of the namd of Biittlebridge. He had made a large 
fortune in business, and had retired to enjoy it, or a portion of it, in 
a great square handsome house with a large garden, keeping a cook, 
housemaid, and gardener, the two latter being man and wife. 

Up to one-and-seventy years of age, Mr. Battlebridge had not 
married; consequently, his dear relatives, even to the twentieth 
cousin, although they'weie all well off, were excessively attentive 
and affectionate toward him, calling upon him and carrying him 
presents of jam and flannel nightcaps a great deal of toner than he 
wanted them. But one day it was disclosed to the old gentleman, 
that a graceless nephew of his had avowed, the previous night, in a 
mixed society, that not one of them “ cared a rap for the old man; 
all they wanted was that be should betake himself off, so that they 
might inherit his gold.” 

While Mr. Battlebridge was digesting this agreeable news, there 
burst into his parlor his cook and housekeeper, Molly : her cheeks 
crimson, and her voice angry. She had been having another breeze 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 


5 


with the gardener and his wife, such breezes being pretty common, 
and had come to give warning. Now Molly was a superior young 
woman and good girl, who looked after her master’s comforts, and 
old Battlebridge would as soon have lost his right hand. 

“ It’s two to one,” cried Molly, turning her comely face to her 
master. “ What chance have I against them? They are always on 
at me: and Mark is the most overbearing man alive. If you don’t 
like to pay me my wages, sir, and let me be off this day. I’ll leave 
without them.” 

“ I’ll make it two to two for you, Molly, if you will, and then 
you can have fair play,” responded the old gentleman. 

“ How will you do that, master?” asked Molly, her passion a lit- 
tle abating, and her pretty mouth breaking into a smile. 

“ Why I’ll marry you myself,” returned old Battlebridge. 

“ I am not in a humor to be joked with,” retorted Molly, becom- 
ing wrathful again. “ Do you please to pay me, sir, or not?” 

“ L am not joking,” he replied. “ I’ll get the license to-day, and 
marry you to-morrow.” 

And old Battlebridge did so: and from that time Molly sat in the 
parlor with him, and became as much of a lady as she could, and 
was Mrs. Battlebridge. Worcester made a great commotion at the 
news; the relatives made a greater. ” Married indeed, when he 
ought to have died!” they cried; and they declared that had they 
kriown of it beforehand, they would have shut him up in the mad- 
house at Droitwich. 

Three little girls were born to old Battlebridge, and then he died, 
leaving his whole property to his wite and children. The relations 
threw it into Chancery, like the simpletons they were, for they had 
not a leg to stand upon. One of them acknowledged that they had 
done it in a moment of exasperation; and exasperation, mind you, 
has been more productive to Chancery than any other passion. "The 
money came out of it just halved ia value, thanks to the case being 
minus the said leg; had it possessed but the shadow of one, it would 
never have come out at all. But there was a great deal left yet; 
quite enough to tempt many a suitor to pay court to the comely 
Widow Battlebridge. The successful one was Surgeon Juniper; and 
the Faithful City wondered. It wondered that he, being a gentle- 
man in mind and manners, should take to himself a vulgar wife; 
but the surgeon, without so much as a wry face, gulped down the 
pill for the sake of the gilt that covered it. 

That the new Mrs. Juniper was in a degree vulgar, nobody could 
deny: she was growing plump; she had not abandoned her homely 
speech and grammar, and had not tried to: but she possessed many 
redeeming qualities. She was gentle-tempered, kind-hearted, 
benevolent to the poor, an excellent wife, mistress, and mother; and 
many a well born lady in the city was glad to shake hands with 
her, and to pay her the respect she deserved. At the time of Mr. 
J uniper’s marriage with her he was a widower, and the father of three 
little girls; her three little damsels made six; and one, who was bom 
after*the double second marriage of the parties, made the seventh. 
So that is how Mr. Juniper counted his daughters. 

The little girls grew up in course of time to be young women, 
well-educated and lady-like, but full of fun amidst themselves. 


6 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 

Two of them — the eldest in each family — soon married; Ann Juni- 
per to a merchant in Liverpool; Mary Battlebridge to a gentleman- 
farmer in Worcestershire. 

It was about this time that the following advertisement appeared 
in the “ Worcester Journal ” and also in the “ Times-” such ad- 
vertisements being less common in those days than they are in these. 

“To the Medical Profession. A gentleman fully qualified as sur- 
geon, &c., possessing money to purchase a share in a practice, may 
hear of something desirable by applying to G. J., Post Office, Wor- 
cester.” 

The advertisement was Mr. Juniper’s. lie received sundry an- 
swers to it, and concluded a negotiation. 

Mr. Juniper’s house, large and commodious, stood in one of the 
principal streets. Entering from its pillared portico, rooms opened 
on each hand- the dining-room on the right, the parlor on the left; 
the drawing room was above. All these rooms faced the street. Mr. 
Juniper’s professional rooms and surgery were at the back, close to 
the side entrance. 

. The parlor was appropriated to the young ladies, to their occupa- 
tions and amusements. You never saw so untidy a place in your 
life; one with the bump of order would, upon entering it, have run 
away in dismay An old piano stood on one side, a Key or two miss- 
ing and a dozen of its wires — it had been the girls’ practicing piano 
when they were children; a set of bookshelves rose opposite, piled 
with books in the greatest confusion; writing-desks lay about, some 
on the floor, some tumbling off chairs; sheets of music, in all stages 
of tearing and copying; workboxes stood open, some without lids, 
others without bottoms, their contents all entangled together in one 
appalling mess; pens, pencils, paints, French crayons, palettes, 
chalks, work, thimbles, keys, notes, and scrap -books* were scattered 
everywhere; whilst the chairs and the carpet were worn, and the 
table-covers frayed. 

In this room, one evening in spring, were all the girls, gathered 
round a blazing lire, sitting, kneeling, or standing. The two Miss 
Junipers were little, fair, slender young women, very near-sighted, 
with hair remarkably light; while the daughters of the late Mr. 
Battlebridge were tall, buxom girls, with dark eyes and arched eye- 
brows; and the youngest, Georgiana, half-sister to all the others, 
was the beauty of the family. She was now eighteen, and was 
thought a great deal of by her sisters in general, and by herself in 
particular, and she had always been indulged. They were bustling, 
accomplished, good-natured girls, much liked in society; but their 
mother possessed stricter notions of right and wrong than does many 
a one who has been better born, and she “ kept them under,” and 
saw more strictly after them than the girls liked. So they looked 
forward with ardent hope to the time when they should be married, 
and become their own mistresses. Are there many girls who do not? 
— especially when they find they have left their teens behind them 
more years than they would care to tell. 

On this evening, in their own parlor, they were chattering by fire- 
light; just the nonsense that girls do chatter. Their theme was 
their father’s new partner, who was expected on the morrow. 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 7 

“I'll tell you what, Julia,” observed Miss Elizabeth Juniper, “ I 
have got him in my mind’s eye exactly, just his portrait.” 

“ Let us have il, Bessy,” was the response of Miss Battlebridge. 

“ You remember that precious assistant papa had two years ago, 
with a nose like a monkey’s and a waist like an elephant’s? I’d not 
mind betting a new fan lie will be just such another man.” 

“ Green spectacles and all?” 

u Green spectacles and all: or, perhaps an eye-glass by way of a 
change. W-e will turn him over to Cicely; she used to admire the 
elephant; and he admired her 1 think.” 

“You may call him an elephant and a monkey now,” cried Miss 
Cicely Juniper, nodding her head, “ but you were all setting your 
caps at him then.” 

“ Just hark at Cicely 1” 

“ He will not concern me,” interrupted Georgiana, tossing back 
her pretty auburn curls, in the self-sufficiency of her youth and 
beauty, “for 1 know he will be as old as papa. 1 shall begin to 
call him ‘ uncle ’ as soon as he comes.” 

“ Who’s this?” exclaimed Kate Battlebridge, turning sharply 
round as the door opened, and a lady, attired in grass-green silk and 
white lace cap with pink ribbons, entered. 

“ It’s only mamma. What are you coming in here for, mamma?” 

“ Why, the truth is, girls, 1 dozed asleep in the twilight, and the- 
fire went almost out, so lam come in while they blow it up,” replied 
Mrs. Juniper. She was stout now and pretty red, and she would 
dress in bright colors; but her face was comely yet, and her voice 
kindly as ever. “Move away a bit, Bessy, and let one see the 
fire.” 

Miss Elizabeth, pushing her sisters closer together, made room for 
Mrs. Juniper, without losing her own place in the circle. 

“We have been wondering what the new doctor will be like, 
mamma.” 

“Just like your silliness, girls: wondering your time away to 
waste. If 1 were you, I’d rather spend it putting this room straight. 
He’ll be here to-morrow night, and then you’ll see. 1 have been 
thinking what 1 had better get for his supper.” 

“Tea, mamma,” interrupted the young ladies. 

“Tea indeed!” ejaculated Mrs. Juniper, indignantly. “If any 
of you took a journey of six-and-twenty miles on a stage coacli, 
you’d be glad of something substantial to eat at the end of it. What 
do you think of a fine savory duck, nicely stuffed with sage and 
onions?” 

The girls screamed, laughed, and did not approve of the dish at 
all. Bessy J uniper suggested an improvement. 

“Have the tea nicely laid, mamma, with watercress and small 
rolls,” she said, “ and get in a little potted meat — ” 

“Potted donkey!” interrupted her mother, sharply. “Do you 
think your papa is going to take a partner to starve him?” 

“ Potted meats are the fashion now,” Bessy ventured to remark. 

“ For full people; not for empt}^ones,” retorted the hospitably-in- 
clined lady. But before the discussion could be continued, the door 
again opened, and a servant, looking in, said, “Miss Erskine’s 
here, young ladies.” 


8 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 

The five girls started up, and hugged their visitor nearly to death. 
She was a very lovely girl, even for Worcester, with her daik blue 
eyes, her exquisite complexion, and her raven hair; and though she 
was young, and slight, and gentle, she had a self-possessed manner 
and a haughty step. 

“ This is kind, Florence,” they cried; “ we have been so stupid 
all the evening! Take your tilings off. We were going to send for 
you to-morrow night, to see the lion arrive.” 

“ The what?” asked the young lady. 

“ Papa’s new partner. He is coming by the Cheltenham coach. 
Bessy vows he’ll be an elephant. And we are afraid he’s old.” 

“ And in the name of fortune, what difference should it make to 
you girls it he is old?” demanded Mrs. Juniper, turning round upon 
them, after shaking hands witli Florence. 

“ Oh— he may not like our noise, our music, and that, if he is 
old,” answered Kate, glancing at the rest. 

“ The preliminaries are arranged, then?” remarked Miss Erskine. 

“Yes, they are, my dear,” said Mrs. Juniper. “ So far as that 
the gentleman is coming for six months upon trial. A trial for both 
parties, you know, Miss Florence, which is only fair.” 

“ Of course it is,” said Florence. “ What is his name?” 

“ His name is the only item in the correspondence that we don’t 
like,” said Mrs. Juniper. “It’s French. But he tells us he is 
thorough, genuine English. He is a Mr. de Courcy.” 

“ Formerly spelt Coursee, 1 believe,” said Julia Battlebridge. 
“ We are dying to see what lie’s like,” she contined in a low voice 
to Florence. “ And we have got such pretty new dresses; challis, 
trimmed with green satin: we mean to put them on to-monow 
night.” 

“ Put on what?” asked Mrs. Juniper, who caught the last words. 

“ Our best behavior,” cried Julia, promptly. 

But Mrs. Juniper’s ears had been quick. “Put on your new 
challis, will you! Look here, girls: you will not set up any of your 
nonsensical flirting with this gentleman. Neither your papa nor me 
would allow it : mind that. ’ ’ 

“ Oh dear, no ,” cried the girls promptly in answer. “ Why we 
are expecting him to be as old as Adam! Mamma, don’t you think 
your fire’s burnt up?” 

“ Here’s the Cheltenham coach; the one he will come by to-mor- 
row evening,” exclaimed Cicely, as a resounding horn was heard 
“ He is from London, Florence; but he took Cheltenham on his road 
down, to see some friends.” 

“ How that guard’s a blowing!” ejaculated Mrs. Juniper. 

“ And the coach has slackened its speed, as if it were going to 
stop.” 

“ It is stopping,” said Mrs. Juniper. 

“ And at our house too! and a gentleman— Oh mamma!” broke 
off Cicely, in excitement, “ he is come to-night 1” 

“Who is come?” asked Mrs. Juniper. 

“Why lie , Mr. de Courcy. It must be! Now he is paying the 
guard— and now they are getting down his luggage — and now lie is 
knocking at the door. What shall we do in these old merino frocks? 
Is there time to dress?” 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 

" Bother to dressing !” put in the startled Mrs. Juniper, “ what’s 
to be done about supper? Nothing on earth in the house but some 
cold hashed mutton and a round ot beef in pickle. Ring the bell 
for the cook: or one of you girls run and tell her to come to me: 
she must send out for— Never trust me,” broke off poor Mrs. 
Juniper, “ if your papa’s not bringing him in here!” 

It was quite true. Mr. Juniper, seeing that the dining-room fire 
looked cold and black, ushered him into the girls’ parlor, where he 
knew there was always a blazing one. He had been so long used to 
its litter that he thought nothing of it, and it never occurred to him 
to ask what a stranger might think. The girls, in spite of their dis- 
may, took in the visitor’s appearance at a glance. 

A tall, prepossessing man, some years under thirty, gentlemanly 
in manner, free and pleasant in speech, with a rather sallow com- 
plexion, dark eyes, handsome features, and a winning smile. They 
could not well have seen one less like an elephant, or a monkey in 
spectacles. He laughed at their apologies about “ the wrong room,” 
and the “ girls’ parlor,” and was at home with them at once. 

Louis de Courcy — “ Lewis,” it had been always called, he told 
them, according to English pronunciation— was born in England of 
French parents; his ancestors had been scared from their own land 
at the time of the great French revolution, and had never returned 
to it. Louis, the youngest of a large family, had grown up in the 
entire habits of an Englishman, and, but for his name, none could 
have suspected that any other country than this could put in a claim 
to him. He had been highly educated, was clever in his profession, 
and had fair prospects as regarded money. When he reached 
Cheltenham, he had found his friends Ihere in deep distress on ac- 
count of a death in their house, so he had come on to Worcester. 

Before Mr. de Courcy had been a week in the surgeon’s house, he 
was a favorite with all its inmates, from Mr. Juniper himself down 
to Dick, the surgery-boy. Extremely clever, extremely eloquent, or, 
if we may be permitted to use the expression of Mrs. Juniper, 
” favored with the gift of the gab,” he took the good-will of people 
by storm, and the girls were convinced that a more desirable man 
as a husband-in-prospective was not to be found. But they could 
not all marry him: that was clear: so he was, by tacit consent, 
turned over to gladden the hopes of Georgiana, the others making 
themselves as agreeable with him as so many elder sisters. To 
Georgiana'was left all the rights of flirting, and she did not fail to 
exercise them on her own account; de Courcy himself proving noth- 
ing loath, for he was fully awake to the charms of a pretty girl. 

44 It would be delightful for Georgy to be settled near us: and de 
Courcy would have to live quite close, being papa’s partner,” the 
girls remarked one to another. “AYe might spend half our time 
there.” 

Indeed, to have a married sister thus established they had long 
regaided as the most fortunate thing that could happen to them— 
always excepting their own marriage — for at her house they could 
flirt away at leisure, secure fiom the discerning eyes of Mrs. Juniper. 
So the girls set themselves Honestly to work to further the flirtation 
between de Courcy and Georgiana. In all their walks and rambles, 
Georgy was left to his care: in all the evening parties, and they went 


10 THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 

to many, he was sure to be her especial cavalier: it was to her his 
arm was given, when it was given at all: it was to her singing his 
voice would be heard as second. When he came into the girls’ par- 
lor tor ten minutes’ chat, the seat next Georgy was at once vacat- 
ed to him: more than all, when he would be in the humor to breathe 
words of tender nonsense, in reality meaning nothing, but to a girl’s 
heart implying much, it was into Georgy’s ear they were whispered. 
De Coarcy was by nature thoughtless, careless of consequences: he 
never reflected that these attentions might appear to other people to 
bear a serious meaning, or that he might be initiating Georgiana, for 
the first time in hei life, into the art of love — to love him. 

We must now turn to the subject and to the abode of Captain 
Erskine; who exemplified in his own person the truth of two of the 
attributes accorded to Worcester- generally— poor and proud. Poor 
he was; very; and from no man, living within the cit} r ’s walls,^clid 
exclusive notions of hauteur more fully shine forth, than from Flor- 
ence’s father, Captain Erskine. In regard to family, he stood on 
the very loftiest pinnacle; his ancestors hadbeeu the highest of the 
high. They were descended originally from royalty, and in later 
periods had owned lords and chancellors for cousins. lie had got 
his pedigree, setting forth all this, framed and glazed, and hanging 
up in his sitting-room. That he was of good descent, appeared to 
be the fact; but he boasted of it in so ridiculous a manner as to have 
acquired the name in the town, derisively applied, of Gentleman 
Erskine. He held up his head, and literally looked down upon 
everybody. He was gracious with the dean when he met him, and 
condescended to exchange bows with the prebends, but he looked 
straight over the hats of the minor canons; of other people he took 
no notice. But fortune, alas, had not been so prodigal to Gentle- 
man Erskine as his rank and his merits deserved; therefore, he lived 
a most retired life. Want of means did not allow him to frequent 
the society of the great; the little were beneath him. It was with 
much pinching and screwing that he contrived to make both ends 
meet’ when the expenses of his pretty little cottage, just outside the 
town, containing his daughter and their one maid servant, were set- 
tled at the end of each year. He had sold out of the army before 
his wife died, and what his small income really was, no one knew. 

Florence, brought up in these exclusive notions, had been allowed 
to cultivate the acquaintance of none. Whether the captain expect- 
ed a lord would drop from the sky some day and pick her up, lie 
did not say, but he certainly allowed her no opportunity to mix with 
any of inferior rank, except the Junipers. Years back, when Mr. 
Juniper was attending the captain professionally, he, the good-nat- 
ured surgeon, pitjdng the isolated condition of the little girl, and 
the lack of means to afford her suitable instruction, proposed that 
she should come to his house daily, and partake (gratuitously) of the 
music and drawing lessons of Georgiana. Gentleman Erskine was 
too much impressed with the advantages of the proposal to decline 
it: though he considered the Juniper family amply repaid by the 
condescension. Hence had arisen Florence’s intimacy at the sur- 
geon’s, and it was now so much a thing of habit, that it never 
occurred to her father to put a stop to it. Still he did not cease to 
remind Florence from time to time that though very worthy people 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS, 11 

in their way, those Junipers, they were persons whom she must 
not, even in thought, exalt into a level with her own sphere ot life. 
Florence dutifully listened: but she wished with her whole heart 
that all such exclusiveness was buried at the bottom of the sea. 

Shortly after the arrival of Mr. de Courcy, it happened that a dis- 
tant relative of Captain Erskine’s, a Mr. Stanton, was passing 
through ^Worcester, and halted there for a day. He was an old 
man, somewhat feeble, and in descending the stairs at the Hop- pole, 
then the principal inn of the city, he fell and broke his leg. He re- 
ceived also au internal injury; and, altogether, it was a doubt whether 
he would ever leave the town again. When able to be removed 
from the Hop-pole, apartments were taken for him in Foregate 
Street, and there he lay still, Captain Erskine dining and spending 
the evening of every day with him. It was said in the town that 
the captain had expectations from him, and that of course it caused 
him to be attentive. Through these repeated absences from home 
of her father, Florence was enabled, unquestioned, to spend every 
evening, if she so willed it, at Mrs. Juniper’s. 

Oh, silly girls I you four elder Miss Junipers! You have but lit- 
tle forethought. You have set your minds upon Georgiana’s gain- 
ing de Courcy, yet you daily throw into nis society one more beauti- 
ful and not less attractive than she is! Florence was for ever being 
sent for by them: and she went. The evenings were growing long 
then, and sometimes all the girls in a body would take her home, 
and sometimes de Courcy himself was her only companion. Flor- 
ence had never been brought into contact with a man so fascinating. 
It is true his manners to her were not of that free, gallant, openly- 
attentive nature displayed to Georgiana, but there was a subdued 
tenderness in them w r hen alone with her, infinitely more dangerous. 
Ah, readers! it is the old tale: Gentleman Erskine might impress 
upon his daughter the superiority ot her descent to those around 
her, might descant upon it from night to morn ; but he could not 
arrest this new, all-absorbing passion that was taking root in her 
heart. There is one thing makes its way in spite ot all things — 
love. 

It is dangerous to a girl’s peace, let me tell j r ou, ay and to a 
woman’s also, to be alone with an attractive companion of the other 
sex in the quiet evening hours. Florence would leave the surgeon’s 
pretty early, by half-past eight or so, de Courcy with her to see her 
safely home. The house was not far off. When there, she would 
lay her bonnet and scarf on the table of the little drawing-room, and 
leaning out at the open window, play with the jasmine and honey- 
suckle that grew round its frame; not that she cared for jasmine 
or honeysuckle just then. De Courcy, sitting by her, would con- 
verse upon no end of subjects — 1 hardly know what, but if you have 
ever made one in these stolen interviews, you can tell. He was try- 
ing to improve her French accent; teaching her to speak whole sen- 
tences in the language; making her conjugate its verbs, aimer 
among the rest. Florence would begin her lesson: she was not 
very perfect in the verbs, especially the reflective verbs; they puz- 
zled her: “ Je m’aime, iu t’aimes, ii s’aime; nous nous — ” and 
there she would stop. “Nous nous aimons,” de Courcy would 
break in, with his low, silvery voice. It really was a musical voice, 


12 THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 

but had it been of a crow’s harshness, it would still have been sil- 
very to her ear. 

“ Nous nous aimons,” de Courcy 'would go on, Florence repeat- 
ing it after him, her heart beating, and her cheek blushing. He 
could see the blushes in the soft twilight of the evening, and she 
would turn her face from him, in its sweet consciousness, leaving 
nothing visible to his sight, save its exquisite profile. They would 
rarely get to the end of the veib. De Courcy would begin upon 
some subject more attractive: the bright stars, perhaps, that were 
beginning to shine, or the pleasant look of the landscape as it cast 
forth its light and shade in the moonlight. The cottage stood upon 
a gentle eminence, and commanded an extensive view of the lovely 
county, than which none more Oeautiful can be seen in England. 
The long chain of the Malvern Hills bounded the landscape in the 
distance, and de Courcy was wont to declare that the clustering 
white houses beneath the hills of Great Malvern looked like fairy 
sea-sliells imbedded amidst moss. The remark has been previously 
recorded elsewhere: but in truth it was often made. Thus they 
would wander on insensibly to dearer subjects, he reciting sweet 
verses at intervals, until they were bolli wrapt in a maze of poetry 
and impassioned feeling. Byron’s poems, Moore’s strains, both 
more new to the world "than they are now; any romance, in short 
that he could call to memory. And, dining all this time, through 
the French, and the verbs, and the talking, and the poetry, he w as 
sure to have stolen one of her hands, and to hold it clasped in his. 
Who would give five shillings now for the chance of Georgy Juni- 
per? 

One evening, either the young surgeon had remained too long, or 
Captain Erskine came home before his usual hour, but as they stood 
there, Florence was startled at the sight of her father coming up the 
road. She closed the window, rang the bell in hasty trepidation for 
candles, and just as the maid — w T ho had had sweethearts herself, and 
was awake to things — scuffled them on to the table, and de Courcy 
rose and stood with his hat in his hand, Captain Erskine entered. 
A ceremonious bow between the tw r o gentlemen, courteous on de 
Courcy’s part, stiff and forced on the captain’s, and the former said 
good night, and v r as gone. 

“ Why, bless my soul, Florence!” uttered the astonished aristo- 
crat, looking round to be sure that he w r as not dreaming, “ it was 
that French fellow of Juniper’s!” 

She made some answer, quite unconscious what it was. Fortu- 
nately the captain was too much rutiled to listen. 

” Fray what brought him here?” 

‘‘1 — he—” Florence began in her terror and agitation, and then 
she could get no further: as we all know, conscience does make the 
very best of us cowards. So she coughed a sharp succession of 
coughs, as if something had got into her throat, and turned to the 
window and began pulling about the muslin curtains: anything to 
gain time and calmness. 

“ What s the matter with the curtains?” he continued, sharply. 
“ 1 ask you what on earth brought that partner of Juniper’s here? 
He was actually sitting down when I first saw him. Sitting down! 
my eyes could not have deceived me.” 


THE SURGEOK ? S DAUGHTERS. 


13 


“ He brought this French book of Elizabeth Juniper’s,” she stam- 
mered, indicating a small French story-book; and, so far, that was 
true. Bessy had lent it to her and he carried it home in his hand. 
“ And 1 was at fault in my verbs, papa, and he offered to set me 
right!” 

True again. At least, tolerably so. Ah, good sir, good pater- 
familias, groaning over these pages and Florence’s degeneracy, do 
you imagine your own girls tell you the whole truth always? You 
were young and in love once: how much did you tell in that golden 
time? 

“The devil take the French and their verbs and all connected 
with them,” shrieked Captain Erskine. “ How dare you stoop to 
put yourself upon a level with a common fellow of a doctor?” 

“Dear papa,” said Florence, bursting into agitated tears. “1 
thought it no harm to ask him about the French verbs.” 

“There’s every harm,” retorted Gentleman Erskine. “Do you 
forget, Florence, who and what we are descended from? There’s 
not a family in the county can boast the antiquity of ours* and here 
1 come home and find a professional man’s assistant sitting in the 
same room with you— sitting ! — quite familiar— admitted co an 
equality! Some unheard-of French jackanapes, who may never 
have had a grandfather!” 

“ 1 am very sorry,” murmured Florence. 

“ Sorry! that’s not the word for it: you ought to be ashamed. If 
the individual should come up again, let the servant take his mes- 
sage from him at the door, and dismiss him civilly — very strange 
that the Miss Junipers cannot send a maid with their commissions!” 

Florence sighed, and was wise ly silent. 

“ You are getting too old now, Florence, to continue your in- 
limacy with these Junipers,” proceeded Gentleman Erskine, loftily. 
“ They were certainly kind to you, and all that, and when you were 
younger it did not so much signify; but it won’t do now. Don’t go 
there again. Or, at any rate, but very rarely; and let the acquaint- 
anceship gradually drop.” 

Captain Erskine stopped at that. He supposed he had said all 
that was necessary, for it never occurred to his exclusive mind to 
suspect that his daughter could be more tolerant on the subject of 
“ family ” than himself. M'hat if he had been in a corner of the 
room that very evening, and seen all the tacit love-making? He 
might have vanished through the floor with the shock, after the 
manner of the imps in the pantomimes. 

Thus Georgiana Juniper regarded Louis de Courcy as her own 
particular knight, but so did Florence Erskine. Each believed that 
she possessed his heart, his sole allegiance. Each of them loved 
him in return. Georgiana in but a light degree; Florence passion- 
ately and enduringly. Her intellect was of a higher order than 
Georgiana’s; she had more imagination, more dreamy sentiment: 
and it is precisely in such natures that love takes the deepest hold. 

And what thought Mr. de Courcj r ? It was impossible that he 
could remain wholly blind to the present aspect of affairs, and he 
began to doubt whether he had not got himself into what the Amer- 
icans call a “ fix.” That it was his own fault, entirely the result of 
his thoughtlessness, was no consolation at all; quite the contrary. 


14 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 


He could not fail to see that Georgiana liked him, if she did not 
love, and he awoke to the fact that he was expected by the other 
girls to make love to her. He had no true love to give her: all his 
hopes were concentrated on Florence. The course of true love never 
yet ran smooth ; we learned that in our copy books : in this case there 
seemed to be a likelihood of its running rather rough. Why could 
not Mr. de Courcy have fallen outright in love with Georgy Juniper, 
and married her with her parents’ consent, as he might have done, 
and so have found his future path all straight before him? Why 
should he have remained wholly insensible (always excepting the 
flirting) to her attractions, and plunged over head and ears in love 
with one, whom there was little more chance of his winning and 
wearing, than there was of his winning the stately daughter of the 
good old bishop at the palace? It must have been fate, 1 think; or, 
something in the air. 

It has been asserted that love cannot exist without jealousy. 
Love is wonderfully sharp-sighted; and, almost before there w r as real 
cause, Florence and Georgiana became jealous of one another. The 
elder girls were not so soon awake to danger: but a word or tw T o, 
dropped by Georgy one day, in a pet, opened their eyes. 

They took alarm at once, lest the desirable match they had so 
pleasantly carved out should drop through; and Florence w\as in- 
vited there no more. IN ot an hour did de Courcy henceforth find 
for himself: walks this evening, projected walks to morrow evening, 
tea and parties always: and he could not escape this, unless he had 
been guilty of absolute discourtesy. Besides, he who had been so 
thoughtlessly officious in seeking the society of Georgiana, could 
not abruptly forswear it in rudeness now T . 

Elizabeth Juniper resolved to put the matter at rest: so the next 
time she was alone with Mr. de Courcy she mentioned, apparently 
quite incidentally, that Florence Erskine was engaged to be married. 
“ To be married 1” uttered de Courcy, the red color flushing into his 
sallow cheek. 

“ Did you not know it?” asked Elizabeth. “ She is to marry her 
cousin, Bob Erskine.” 

De Courcy reflected. He w T as nearly sure he had heard Florence 
speak of a cousin “ Bob.” 

“You don’t know Gentleman Erskine,” she went on. “His 
uncles and aunts, his godfathers and godmothers w r eie princes and 
princesses, or something as grand, and he considers nobody upon 
earth good enough to associate with himself and Florence. Only to 
see him loom through the street in winter, in that old worn fur-cloak 
of his with the scarlet lining, you would think all Worcester be- 
longed to him! The little boys have to turn out into the gutter, for 
there’s not room enough to pass him. Fancy such a man permitting 
his daughter the hazard ot being addressed by any chance provincial! 
Not he, you may be sure. So he has secured for her one of the 
family, Bob Erskine.” 

“ Is this true, Bessy?” asked the young man. 

“ True as Gospel.” 

“ It is strange I never heard Florence allude to it.” 

“ It would be stranger if you had. Young ladies are not in the 


THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTERS. 


15 


habit of telling their matrimonial engagements. I may be engaged, 
for all you have heard me say: so may Kate; or Georgy either.’’ 

“ Very true,” murmured de Courcy, with more abstraciion than 
Bessy liked to see him exhibit at her latest allusion. “ Who is Bob 
Erskine? Where does he live?” 

“ Bob’s a cousin, 1 tell you; the head ot the Erskine family. He 
is in the Guards, or the Rifles, or some one of those crack regiments.” 

“ Can it be really so, Bessy?” he continued, still harping upon the 
theme. “ How did you come to know it?” 

“ From Florence herself. The last time Bob was staying with 
them, we girls charged her with its being so, and she admitted it. 
Though perhaps 1 ought not to have told you— it slipped from me 
unawares. It must be quite entre nous, mind you, Mr. de Courcy.” 

“ Certainly,” nodded the gentleman, unconsciously biting the top 
of his silver pencil-case into all sorts of forms. 

“ They are not to be married yet,” concluded Bessy. “ Captain 
Erskine considers Florence too young; and Bob— well, Bob’s young 
too.” 

De Courcy took it all in— like an amiable sea-gull. Open and 
truth-telling himself, it never occurred to him to suspect people of 
being otherwise, certainly not a young lady like Elizabeth Juniper. 
But though Bessy had exaggerated a little, she had grounds for 
what she said. They had teased Florence about Bob Erskine when 
he was there, had acnised her of being engaged to him; and 
Florence, after the custom of vain girls, had laughed and simpered, 
but had not positively denied it. 

De Courcy felt miserable, for he had become deeply attached to 
Florence Erskine, and there grew up a sore feeling* in his heart 
toward her, that she should have fooled him nearly on to tell her so. 

Mr. and Mrs. Juniper were totally ignorant of all this flirting and 
scheming. Had a suspicion of it entered their minds, they would 
have given the girls a sharp trimming all round. 

After this, the young doctor did not go near Florence, and if he 
heard ot her being at Mrs. Juniper’s, he kept out of the way. 
Thus he fell easily into the schemes of the Juniper girls, and flirted 
with Georgy as much as ever. “ Pour faire passer le temps,” he 
said to himself, ” rien autre.” He often thought in French. 

One evening, Florence Erskine stood at that open window of her 
sitting-room; she had thus stood for many, many evenings, watch- 
ing for one who did not come. Talk about de Courcy’s ’feelings 
being sore— what were they to hers? Anger, despair, jealousy, and 
love by turns held possession of her. Oh that she should have 
suffered herself thus to become attached to a stranger— to a man de- 
spised of her father— to one who had sought her love only to fling it 
away in neglect ! 

Would he ever come again? would those sweet hours, whose very 
remembrance seemed to renew life and love, ever return? Where 
was he? What had she done that he should thus desert her? As 
these thoughts dwelt in her mind, flushing her cheek, chilling her 
hands, agitating her whole frame, a noise, as of carriage-wheels, 
was heard, and Florence looked up. The road passed close by the 
side of the cottage, and the large, handsome four-wheeled chaise of 
Mr. J uniper came in sight, the surgeon driving, his wife beside 


16 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 


him, and Julia and Kate in the back seat.. Following, was the sur- 
geon’s professional gig, containing de Courcy and Georgiana. 

The party bowed and smiled and nodded at Florence, the good- 
humored surgeon calling out something her ear did not catch. He 
raised his hat as he looked at her : and, m the space of a minute, all 
trace of them, save the dust, was gone. 

She shut down the window; she leaned her throbbing temples 
upon her hands; she gave vent to all the fierce jealousy that was 
raging within her. Never, never, she told herself in her passion, 
should her thoughts revert to that man again, save with scorn. 
And yet, the next minute, she caught herself indulging in a fantas- 
tic hope that he might come, even that evening, when his drive was 
over. 

But he did not come; and the next night passed, and the next, yet 
he did not come; and a whole week dragged itself by, and still he 
did not come. Florence was as one in a fever, tossing about by 
night and by day, and finding no rest. 

One evening she was passing the surgeon’s house when Mr. Juni- 
per met her and took her in. They were just going to tea, and the 
hearty, kindly girls said she must stop. The whole family were 
present, and de Courcy looked at her Keenly. She refused their in- 
vitation, but it was of little use: one ran away with her bonnet, am 
other with her gloves: and she sat down. 

“ "What news is stirring, Florence?” asked the surgeon. 

“ None, that I have heard,” she replied. “ Papa received a let- 
ter from my cousin Robert this morning. You remember him?” 

“ Quite well.” 

“ He has been exchanging into another regiment, and embarks 
immediately for India. When he comes home again, he will prob- 
ably be an old man, he says.” 

“ Has he got a wite yet, dear?” asked Mrs. Juniper, slyly; for she 
had had her ideas of Florence and her cousin. 

“ Bob got a wife!” laughed Florence. “ Oh, no. He is not 
likely to take a wife.” 

“ My dear, you speak rather confidently.” 

“ 1 think I may,” replied Florence. “ When Bob had to go to 
Spain last month, papa, in writing, warned him against the attrac- 
tions of the ladies there, saying he should not like to see him bring 
home a Spanish wife. Bob answered him that he was the last man 
in the world to think of any encumbrance of the sort, Spanish or 
English.” 

De Uourcy looked up, a strange, eager expression on his features. 
But, just at that moment, Miss Bessy was so awkward as to tilt over 
the cup of tea she was handing him, and he had to start up and 
dance, for it scalded his legs. 

A servant was desired to attend Florence home that night, but 
there stood de Courcy in the hall, hat in hand. “ Papa wants you , 
Mr. de Courcy,” exclaimed Bessy: ‘‘he called to you as he went 
into the surgery.” So the young man, with an impatient exclama- 
tion on his lips, sought his senior partner; and Florence left with the 
maid. 

But scarcely had she entered her home, when he followed her in: 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 17 

and he stood there before her, his chest heaving, and his words com- 
ing from him impetuously. 

“ What must you have thought of me, Florence, all this while?” 
he began. “You must either have judged me to be mad, or the 
most dishonorable man breathing.” 

8he trembled in her surprise and agitation, and felt faint, and 
could not answer. She certainly had not deemed him mad. 

He took hei trembling hands in his, he looked earnestly into her 
changing face, and went on, eagerly: 

“ Misapprehension has come between us, my love; whether de- 
signedly, or not, 1 cannot say. I see it all now. 1 was lea to be- 
lieve you were engaged to be married to your cousin— this Bob you 
have been talking of to-night.” 

She uttered an exclamation of astonishment. “ Oh no, no. 
There never was anything between us: we did not care for each 
other in that way. Bob is too poor to marry : that is, too extrava- 
gant.” 

“ Yet I, in my credulity, believed it. It has been as a dagger in 
my heart night and day. For 1 love you, Florence, with a deep and 
holy love.” 

He drew her closer to him— he whispered words of the most en- 
dearing tenderness — he pressed her sweet face against his. And 
then they both thought — and said— that nothing should ever part 
their hearts again; that they would live together, and for each other, 
until their years of life had run into the sear and yellow leaf. 

But how many others have fondly vowed the same, only to find 
them hereafter words of vanity and vexation of spirit! 


CHAPTER II. 

THE PREDICTION. 

Presently we are going to pay a day’s visit to Malvern. Not to 
Malvern as it has been of later years and now is, but as it was nearly 
a life-time ago. It was a lovely little spot then; romantic, secluded, 
and beautiful. Not a shop to be seen in it save the cake-shop by the 
steep, leading down toward the abbey, and the library. No gay 
place was it "in those bygone days, no rendezvous for travelers in 
smart clothes, eager foi pleasure and societ}'; the few visitors seek- 
ing it were really invalids, requiring pure air and peace. It was 
half soothing, half painful, to sit on these beautiful hills, some- 
where about St. Ann’s Well, and watch the scanty stock of visitors 
toiling up, one by one. Soothing to recline there, undisturbed, on 
the green moss, soft as velvet, looking round at that immense extent 
of landscape, so calm and still, where the only noise to break the 
quiet would be a distant sheep-bell; painful to gaze at the pale 
faces of the invalids, suppoiting themselves up the hill by the help 
of a stick, and to listen to their troubled breathing as they gained 
the Well-room, and held the goblet-glass under the spring. 1 have 
sat there many a da} r as a child, finding no occupation but this 
watching and sympathy; picturing to my curious mind the outward 
and inwaid histories of these sick strangers; wondering whence 


18 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 

they came, whither they were going next, where they lodged in the 
village. On some bright day the monotonous scene- would be varied. 
A picnic party from Worcester, all gayety and laughter and baskets 
of provisions, would crowd merrily up the hill, and fixing upon a 
level, convenient spot, encamp themselves and their dishes on it, 
preferring this free, gypsy mode of enjoying a repast to the confine- 
ment and expense of an hotel Sometimes the day would pass on iu 
almost complete solitude, no parties and no invalids, and then there 
was nothing to do but sit on the grass and build castles in the air, or 
to find a fairy-tale book, and be rapt in a child’s Elysium. 

Oh, the retrospect of those early daj r s, our life’s morning! when it 
seems that there is no care or sorrow in the world, or that, it there 
is, it cannot come near us; when we dream not that existence, the 
mysterious future so eagerty longed for, can be otherwise than it 
looks to us in those day-visions, sunny as the charming landscape 
around, bright as the blue sky above" To recall life as it looked 
then, with its glorious hopes and expectations, and to dwell on the 
troubled waters that have come rushing on since, well-nigh over- 
whelming heart and existence! Let us hasten on. 

Many a merry donkey-party you might see then, foiling up the 
hills or cantering about the village. We had ours. One of them I 
especially remember. Twelve or fourteen of us, careless boys and 
girls together, got the donkeys hired for us, and mounting in the 
village, jus* by the Unicorn, cantered off for a ride toward the 
Link; Ihe old, sober heads of the company bringing up the rear on 
foot at a sober pace. The turnpike-gate was open, and through it 
we dashed. But out came the turnpike-man, tearing after us, shout- 
ing and screaming. We all reined in, and stopped. What was the 
matter? Matter indeed! we had gone through the gate without pay- 
ing. It was certainly true: and what was quite as true, upon search- 
ing our pockets, those who had any, there was not a single half- 
penny to be found in dne of them; what little we had possessed 
erlier in the day had been spent in “ Malvern cakes.” In vain we 
represented to the man that “ those behind ” were coming up with 
pockets full of money, and they were the paymasters. He preferred 
being on the safe side, was surly and inexorable; so he made us all 
dismount, and took off the white cloths of the donkeys. What 
cared we? we remounted without them, and scampered on down 
the Link, leaving our astonished old relatives to redeem the pledges. 
Old , wo thought them then: we should not think so now. Lodgings 
at Malvern were within the bounds of a cautious purse then, and 
tlier was many an unpretending cottage, picturesque without, clean 
within, which would let you its best sitting-room, and its bedrooms, 
for less than sovereign per week, and give you pleasant looks aad 
civil attendance besides. Go and try them now, these Malvern lodg- 
ings. Not that any cottages are left to try: they are transformed 
into glaring villas and pretentious mansions. 

Lew places have changed as Malvern has changed. Many a year 
ago it became the emporium of fashionable society, who flocked to 
it to try the “ Water Cure.” Patients wrote their experiences to laud 
the system; our greatest novelist of that day put forth an account 
of the marvelous blessings it had wrought on him, telling the world 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 19 

it had made him young again. But the romance of the place is 
gone forever, and the peace "of seclusion it cannot know again. 

The day’s visit to Malvern was lea to by Mrs. J uniper. Summer 
had come in. Mr. de Courcy and Florence Erskine were cherishing 
their secret love; while the Juniper girls, perceiving it, made up 
their minds to accept the inevitable, if it must be, and ceased to 
fight actively against it. They were good, right-minded girls, alter 
all. 

“ 1 don’t know whether 1 should altogether care to have him for 
my husband, though lie is very nice to flirt with,” avowed Geor- 
giana. 

One hot afternoon the girls wrote a note, inviting Florence to tea; 
there was a secret they very much wished to impart to her. On the 
evening previous to this, de Courcy had paid a short visit to Cap- 
tain Erskine’s house. And now as Florence read the note, his im- 
passioned words were still vibrating in her ears. 

Of course she went : she would have gone to the end of the earth 
for the prospect of meeting him. Aud it was when all were seated 
at the tea-table that Mrs. Juniper began talking of Malvern. 

“ Children,” she said, “ guess what I have been thinking of.” 

“ How should we know, mamma?” asked the young ladies. 

“ Why that we are perlite people, all of us, to have had Mr. de 
Courcy so long in our house, and never to have taken him to Mal- 
vern.” 

“We can take him now,” said Bessy. 

“ To be sure,” heartily assented her mother. “And you have a 
great treat in store, as you’ve never seen it,” she added to de 
Courcy. “ How we came to neglect it, 1 can’t make out. Why, the 
first attention we think of paying to a stranger friend— anyone from 
London, perhaps, or from far away on t’other side somewhere — is to 
take him to Malvern.” Mrs. Juniper’s geographical knowledge was 
rather confused, especially on the map of England and Wales. 

“ Let us make up a picnic,” exclaimed Georgiana. “ And take 
our provisions, and dine on the hill.” 

“ With all my heart,” said Mrs. Juniper. “ You must come with 
us, Miss Florence. ” 

She looked up eagerly, and caught de Courcy ’s glance. Oh, the 
rapture of a wdiole day spent on the Malvern Hills with him! 

“ When shall it be?” cried Julia Battlebridge. “ When would it 
suit papa? To-morrow, papa?” 

“ If you like, child. Ask your mamma.” 

“To-morrow!” echoed Mrs. Juniper, reprovingly; “hadn’t you 
better start to-night? You children have about as much brains as 
thought— and your papa no more either, in some things. "Who is to 
get up a picnic at an hour’s notice? There’s the company to be in- 
vited, and got together, and there’s the eatables. We shall want 
cold fowls, aud tongue, and alimode beef; and some of you perhaps 
will be calling out for fruit tartlets. How can you have all this if 
you don’t give time to cook and prepare it?” 

Mrs. Juniper’s remonstiance was unanswerable; so one of the 
girls dismally proposed the day after. 

“ That’s as bad,” corrected Mrs. Juniper. “ Nobody goes pic- 
nicking on a Saturday.” 


30 


THE SUEGEOX’S DAUGHTEBS. 


Finally, Monday was fixed upon. But Florence was wondering 
whether she could gain her father s consent. 

Just at this period, Worcester was indulging surprise at a rnattei 
which was not in the common run of events. Some two or three 
weeks before, a stranger had alighted in the town, had taken a lodg-^ 
in<r and had caused it to be circulated in privacy and secrecy that 
he^told fortunes. The surprise arose not from the simple action ol 
his setting-up as a fortune-teller, for that was nothing extraordinary, 
but in the fact that sundry predictions, spoken by this man to 
different people, weie fulfilled in, to say the least of u, an unac- 
countable manner. Several of his visitors declared, with then eyes 
dilating and their hair standing on end near the bump of marvel, 
that lie had told them things winch nobody ever knew, or ever could 
know, save themselves and Heaven. A scanty few of credulous peo- 
ple went to him at first: what they said sent others, and the man s 
tame grew. He was called the Wizaid, and lie was never known in 
Worcester by any other name. It. is no fictitious story that l am 
relating, though but few people can be left now in Worcestei who 
remember it. The better class of people went to bu “ w Pn Hn 
would not have confessed to it for the world; some of them went in 
disguise. The man and his curious power had become an 
engrossing theme in the town, Mr. Juniper laughingly ta v , 

and Mr. juniper s daughters were wild to test it. fW 

It was this which the girls wanted to confide to Floience, that 
they had made up their minds, alter some qualms ot conscience, to 

consult the Wizard. . OTlH 

Tea over, two of them drew her into their own parlor, Cicely and 
Kate; and they asked her if she would not like to accompany them. 
“ Are you all going?’ ’ inquired Florence. , . 

“Not at once: the number might betray us, for where s there 
such a family of grown-up girls as ours? replied Cicely. 1 an 
Georgy think of going first, and the other three some later night. 

Won’t you come with us?” . 

“ Not 1,” laughed Florence, “ 1 have no faith. W izaids are 
clever men, 1 suppose: this one especially must, be; but— 

“ it will be such fun,” urged Cicely. We are dying to go. 1 hey 

say the most extraordinary things of linn.” 

“ What if you get found out? If your papa hears ol it,. 

“ How can he hear?” broke in Kate. “ We shall take every pre- 
caution: wear our shabbiest cotton frocks and garden shawls. The 
maids afe going to end us muslin caps to put on undei our old ^cot- 
tage bonnets, so that we may pass for servant-gn is. Why, if papa 
—or mamma, and she’s sharper— were to meet us tn the street they 

im “l know'ifwm be great fun; and if 1 thought it would not be 
found out—” mused Florence. “ When do you go, Cicely? 

“ We have fixed on Saturday night; the common peop.e are then 
occupied and there will be less chance of our meeting anyone at 
the Wizard’s. Mamma won’t miss us; we shall soon be i tlicie sand 
back; and the others have promised to stay with herall “ 
she asks anything, they are going to say we arc upstairs, brus g 
each other’s hair. Do come, Florence. 

“ 1 don’t believe in it,” returned the young lady, waveringly. 


21 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 

“Why, they say he will describe one’s future husband,” ex- 
claimed Cicely, “ and so accurately, that if you were not to meet 
with him for years to come, you could not fail instantly to recog- 
nize him.” 

A quick, burning color dyed the face of Florence Erskine. If the 
wise man could indeed do this, she should know whether she was 
destined for de Courcy, and her doubts and her fears would be set at 
rest. And yet, the next moment, she laughed at the absurdity of 
her thoughts. “ Perhaps 1 will go,” she said to Cicely. 

“ Come in to tea on Saturday evening and we will steal away 
afterward. You will not have a betler opportunity. And remem- 
ber, Florence, it is no such weighty matter after all, and if it does 
no good — if we don’t hear anything worthy of belief, 1 mean — it can 
do no harm.” 

“ 1 will go with you; but mind, 1 have no superstition about me,” 
exclaimed Florence, looking suddenly up. “ 1 never had faith in 
these things, and never shall have. If I had faith, or any supersti- 
tion, 1 should stay away.” 

Cicely laughed. “ That is what everybody says.” 

“ For when 1 was a child,” pioceeded Florence, speaking as if 
she were in a reverie, “ a woman who pretended to the gift of read- 
ing the future, as this man now pretends, foretold that if ever I 
should have my ‘ fate cast,’ I should be at the end of my life.” 

Kate gave a subdued scream. “ Then tor the love of heaven stay 
away from him !” she exclaimed. 

“ Don’t be silly, Kate,” said Florence, lightly. “ Do you believe 
that such power, pertaining only to the Most High, can be given to 
mortal man?” 

Kate considered. Cicely shook her head. “ It may be given for 
a purpose at times,” Cicely said gravely. “ We cannot know. Either 
all these * Wise Men ’ are impostors, or none are; understand, I am 
speaking only of these wonderful soothsayers who are heard of per- 
haps but once in a century. It this strange man, astrologer, or 
whatever he may call himself, who has set himself down in Worces- 
ter, no one knowing 4 whence he cometh, or whither he goeth,’ like 
the wind — if it is given to him to discern and foretell the future, it 
may have been also given to her, who prophesied, you say, of your 
fate when you were a child. Do not iro, Florence.” 

“ And we are living in enlightened times, and you think it neces- 
sary to give me this advice gravely?” exclaimed Florence, her lip 
curling with scorn. “ Oh, Cicely!’*’ 

“ But if you are so mockingly incredulous, why go at all?” per- 
sisted Cicely. “ You will not believe anything he may tell you.” 

“ Surely you do not suppose 1 go to have my fortune told?” re- 
torted Miss Erskine. 44 Nonsense, Cicely! If 1 go at all, it will be 
ror the fun of the thing; and to hear how far your credulity will 
allow him to dupe you and Georgiana.” 

Cicely looked at her. 44 1 don’t think you are quite so skeptical as 
you wish to make out, Florence.” 

44 Indeed I am.” 

On the following day, Friday, Florence proffered the request to 
her father — that she might be allowed to accompany the party to 
Malvern. It is eight miles from Worcester by road. Captain 


22 THE surgeon's daughters. 

Erskine clianced to be in a good liumor, with himself and everybody 
about him, for Mr. Stanton had distinctly intimated to him that he 
was substantially remembered in his will, and the captain foresaw 
an end to his pinching povery. So he hesitated in his reply: had it 
not been for his exuberance of spirits he would have denied her at 
once. 

“ Who is going?” he inquired. 

“ Mrs. Juniper and the young ladies,” replied Florence, not dar- 
ing to intimate that any strangers w T ere to be invited. “ Mr. Juniper 
will ride over in the afternoon, if he lias time. ’’ 

‘‘Juniper’s carriage will not hold them all,” cried Gentleman 
Erskine. “ And who’s to drive it?” 

44 The groom will drive, 1 suppose; and they are going to have a 
post carriage from the Crown,” answered Florence. 44 It is two 
years since 1 went to Malvern, papa.” 

44 But the going with these Junipers, Florence! 1 don’t like 
that.” 

“ I do not know anyone else to go with,” she timidly observed. 

“Well, Florence,” he reluctantly conceded, 44 for this once you 
may join them. But 1 do insist upon it that afterward you set your- 
self resolutely to break up by degrees the intimacy. The girls" may 
be pleasant and sociable, and all that, but they are beneath you. I 
am going out myself for a few hours on Monday,” he concluded, 
pompously. 

Gentleman Erskine w^as going fishing. It was an amusement he 
delighted in. [Sometimes he would be seen with his rod and basket, 
bearing off toward the W ear, at Powick: sometimes in the direction 
of Bransford; sometimes in a totally opposite route. And there, ar- 
rived at the stream, he would sit with exemplary patience for hours, 
in breathless silence, staring at the float, his line in the water, a worm 
at one end and a— what is it?— at the other, waiting for the fish to 
bite; his brain filled all the time with the greatness of the grandeur 
of all the Erskines. 

It was getting toward sunset on Saturday evening, when three fig- 
ures, attired in cotlon dresses, faded shawls, and plain straw bon- 
nets with huge muslin borders underneath them, in short, looking 
like decent servant-girls, stole oul of Surgeon Juniper’s house, and 
w r alked quickly along the street, turning their heads from the gaze 
of the passers-by. The young ladies would fain have waited for 
twilight, but had not dared to make it so late. Fortune seemed to 
have favored them, for an old friend of Mrs. Juniper’s had dropped 
in to spend the evening with her, and she never gave a thought to 
what the girls might be about; while Mr. Juniper and de Courcy 
were gone to some famous medical lecture that was being given 
that evening in the town. 

They bent their steps in the direction of Low r esmoor, in an ob- 
scure part of which neighborhood sojourned the M/izard. 

44 There’s the house,” exclaimed Cicely in a whisper, pointing to 
one of four low ones in a row, with green shutters and narrow door 
ways. 44 1 and Julia were walking by it with papa last Sunday, and 
he laughingly showed it to us : little thinking we should ever make 
use of his information.” 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 


23 


As Cicely spoke, they halted before the door, hesitating and de- 
liberating, half fearful, now it was so near, of going on with the 
adventure. 

“You knock, Georgy,” continued Cicely. 

“ Knock yourself/ retorted Georgy. “You have the use of your 
hands.” 

“Shall we go back?” asked Florence, some impulse prompting 
her. 

“ Why, if we go back,” argued Cicely, “ they will laugh at us so 
dreadfully. Unless we say he had such a lot of people with him he 
could not see us. Are you afraid?” 

“ I afraid,” retorted Florence, disdainfully. “ But we had better 
do one thing or the other, for we may attract attention standing 
here.” 

“ Oh courage, courage,” exclaimed Georgiana, giving a smart rap 
at the door; “ don’t let us have to say we took all this trouble about 
the caps and things for nothing.” And, before they had time to 
draw back, which perhaps they would have done, after all, a boy 
opened the door and showed them into the presence of the Wizard. 

He looked as little like a wizard, that is, like their ideas of one, as 
he could well look. A thin old gentleman of sixt.y, dressed in black 
with a white cravat, leaning back comfortably in au arm-chair: tliey 
might have taken him for one of* the minor canons sitting at his ease 
after dinner. The room had nothing in it but chairs, tables, a carpet, 
the usual ordinary furniture: of all apparatus generally supposed to 
belong to the exercise of the black art, the place was void. 

“ Is it the wrong house?” whispered Georgiana to her sister. 

“ No, it is the right house,” said the master, answering her 
thoughts, for her speech, they truly believed, he could not have 
heard. “Which of you shall I speak with first? Let the others 
take a seat.” 

He motioned toward a row of chairs that stood against the wall at 
the end of the room. The girls did not take the bint; all three of 
them clustered round the table, on which stood a curiously- con- 
structed lamp, not known in those days-, but common enough now. 
It gave a great light, and Georgiana, shrinking from its glare, "pushed, 
almost imperceptibly, her sister toward the soothsayer. He resumed 
his seat, and looked at them, one by one. 

“ Why did you come to me in disguise?” he asked: “ with me it 
avails not. Take oft those clumsy gloves,” he continued to Cicely; 
“ you have adopted them that your lady-hands may be hidden from 
me: but until 1 have examined those hands, 1 cannot answer you a 
single question, or tell aught that you seek to know.” 

She removed obediently the old beaver gloves, almost reverently, 
as if she were in the presence of a master-spirit — perhaps she thought 
she ioas. Before looking at her hands, he took out of a drawer a 
pack of cards, giving them to her to shuffle and cut, and he then 
placed them, one by one, their faces upward, upon the table. They 
were singular looking; not playing cards at all; each card presented 
a different and intricate picture, and was inscribed with some curi- 
ous Egyptian name. 

Cicely waited, her hands stretched out to display their palms. Now 
the wizard would carefully examine the hands, a microscope to liis 


24 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 


eye; now, without the microscope, he would study the cards on the 
table. Presently he laid the glass down, and looked in Cicely’s 
face. The other two stood in silence, amusement displayed on the 
conntenance of Florence Erskine. 

“ Ton need not have troubled yourself to come here,” he began 
abruptly, addressing Cicely, “ for 1 can tell you little more than you 
already know.” 

“ What do you mean?” she stammered, involuntarily and he re- 
sumed. 

“ Your course will be marked with no event of sufficient moment 
to be set forth here: neither of joy nor sorrow. As a ship sails 
calmly along a smooth sea, so will you pass peacefully down the 
stream of your maiden life, until its race shall be run.” 

“ But who will be my husband? inquired the eager Cicely. 

Y r ou will never marry,’* he returned. 

“ Never marry!” echoed the girl. 

“No. You had a chance once, and you threw it away. You 
will not have another.” 

Georgiana stared in amazement at the joke of Cicely’s having re- 
ceived an offer, and rejected it. But look at Cicely — at her glowing 
color: lhat alone will tell you his words are true. The assistant- 
surgeon, designated by her sisters as the elephant, the monkey in 
spectacles, had made Cicely an offer in secret, and she refused it. 

“And be thankful that your life is destined to be so uneventful,” 
continued the speaker to lier. “ There are two paths in this world; 
one is of peace— and a very small one it is, but little frequented; the 
other is full of thorns. To few people indeed is it given to tread the 
former; but you are one of them.” 

The dismayed and angry Cicely felt her face grow hot and cold 
by turns, as she listened to this most unwelcome prediction; and she 
only awoke from her astonishment, to hear the man address her sis- 
ter. Georgiana had removed her gloves at his desire, touched the 
cards as Cicely did, and waited. Florence had drawn nearer, and 
she saw, what she had never noticed before, that the inside of Geor- 
giana’s hands, even to the ends of the fingers, were completely cov- 
ered with lines; small lines, crossed, and re-crossed again. The old 
man sat looking at them with his glass to his eye. 

“ Y T our fate in life will be widely different from your sister’s ” he 
said at length, “ for you will meet with, and endure, more cares 
than 1 should choose to tell you of.” 

“ And not be married either, perhaps!” burst forth the indignant 
Cicely. 

“You will be married in God’s own good time,” he continued to 
Georgiana, taking no heed of Cicely. “ And though your life will 
be full of cares, as 1 now predict, there is no cause for you to be 
dismayed, for it will not be without its compensations. Your home 
will lie in a foreign land, one washed by the troubled waters of the 
Pacific Ocean. lie is there now; and you will not see him yet; not 
for years.” 

“ Not there nowV y exclaimed Georgiana, surprised out of the re- 
mark. 

“ May be your thoughts are running upon one nearer and 
dearer,” he rejoined: “but neither of you” — and he looked alter- 


25 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 

nately at Georgiana and Florence — “ will marry him; so let there be 
no more bitter feeling between you. You have wasted by far too 
much on these dreams already; dreams that for both of you will 
come to naught. The wife destined for him is as yet a child, sport- 
ing in her mother’s home: neither of you will ever be more to him 
than you are now.” 

Georgiana, in her surprise, could not find ready words of answer. 
Florence was indignant. 

“ You are mistaking your vocation, sir,” she haughtily ex- 
claimed. “ 1 did not come here to have my fortune told/’ 

“ 1 will not tell it, young lady,”. he quietiy replied. “ Neverthe- 
less, 1 should like to be allowed to take a closer look at your hands. 
T’heir marks strike me as being peculiar.” 

Florence’s hands were lying open on the table; she had taken off 
the large, uncomfortable gloves assumed for disguise. Making no 
objection, she moved them nearer to him in scornful compliance; 
perhaps in curiosity. The Wizard examined them long and attent- 
ively, glancing aside at the cards from time to time in silence. 

“ 1 did not come to you for advice or remark of any kind,” re- 
peated Florence, when he looked up. 

“So you have informed me; and 1 know that all 1 might say 
would be worse than despised. Yet, if you would listen to me, I 
could save you even now.” 

“ Save me from what?” 

“ Nay, why question me? Have you not warned me that you 
wish to hear nothing?” 

“ 1 wish to hear this,” she answered, her tone of scorn growing 
deeper. “ Tell it me, 1 beg of you.” 

“ It will make no difference whether 1 do or not,” remarked the 
man, as if speaking to himself. “ From the fate which is threaten- 
ing you, and which appears” — bending again over her hands — “ to 
be drawing very close now — ” 

“ Pray what is the fate?” she interrupted. 

“ 1 cannot say. I do not know.” 

Florence laughed a derisive laugh. “ Oh, thauk you: that is quite 
sufficient. You would warn me to avoid some fate or other, but you 
don’t know what! Thank you, sir, once again, for your valuable 
advice. 1 have already said I did not come to seek it.” She made 
him a half- mocking courtesy, and turned to her companions, saying 
that as their business was over, it was time to be going. The young 
ladies turned to leave, and the Wizard rose. 

“ To you who did come to seek it, 1 have no more to add,” lie 
said. “ Your life,” looking at Cicely, “will be one of uneventful 
calm, bearing for you no great pleasures and no great pains. And 
yours,” turning to Georgiana, “ will be one scene of cares and crosses 
from the day you relinquish your father’s name, and his for which 
you will exchange it, is to you as yet that of a stranger: but do not 
forget that the life will bring to you its compensations. There is 
nothing more; so go back quickly, all of you, to whence you came.” 

The two sisters laid, each, a heavy piece of silver on the table, as 
they turned to depart. Florence laid nothing. She was about to 
follow them, when the old man placed his hand upon her shoulder, 
his strange, deep-set eyes riveting their gaze on hers. 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 


26 


“You have good seed in your heart,” he .said earnestly, ‘‘and 
your faults are but those of youth and thoughtlessness: 1 will not 
have it on my conscience that I suffered you to pass this threshold 
without a warning, unavailing though it will be. For the next three 
or four days, say until Monday — or — perhaps — Tuesday — say until 
Tuesday shall have glided into the womb of the past, keep strictly 
the Commandments; break not one either in the spirit or the letter; 
and then years of happiness may yet be yours.” 

“ And if I do not?” asked Florence. 

“ 1 have told you that you will not. In less than the time I have 
mentioned to you, you will, 1 fear, have gone whither we are all 
hastening.” 

“If danger threatens me,” she persisted, “ why not tell me its 
nature, that 1 may avoid it?” 

“In asking the question, you are but mocking still,” he sadly 
said, “ but l^will answer it. That some great danger threatens to 
overtake you, is certain; its precise nature 1 know not; such close 
knowledge is not given us. But it seems to me that it will arise out 
of some fault of your own — 1 think, self-willed disobedience. Now 
go! 1 have fulfilled my duty.” 

He resumed his chair as he spoke, and the three girls turned and 
were gone. 

“ Of all canting, story-telling impostors,” broke out Cicely, before 
they were well in the street, being unable longer to control her exas- 
peration, “ that wicked old animal beats all.” 

Cicely truly believed so. For he had said she would never be 
married: and it all the wise men breathing had sworn to that, she 
would not have given credit to it. 

“You don’t believe in him, then?” said Georgiana, whose spirits 
seemed rather subdued by the visit. 

“ Believe in him!” retorted Cicely. “1 would give a thousand 
pounds, if I had it, to be Mayor of Worcester for one daj r , just to 
have him put in the stocks. The wretched old idiot!” 

Florence Erskine remained silent, her reflections full of uneasi- 
ness and perplexity. She had maintained during the visit a mood of 
contempt and disbelief: to say that she came away in such would be 
wrong. The extraordinary power with which that man, wizard or 
no wizard, divined her and Georgiana’s most secret feelings, puz- 
zled her: their jealousy of each other, which she had believed could 
be known lo none; the positive assertion that neither of them would 
marry de Courcy ; with the solemn prediction, that in a space of time 
which might be counted by hours, some untoward fate threatened 
to overtake her, he evidently pointed to death! Mixed with these 
thoughts, came recurring the remembrance of that tale of her child- 
hood — that should she ever have her fortune told, she would be at 
the end of her life: this man had now said she was at the end of it. 

“ I told you,” she laughed, but the laugh sounded bitterly hollow 
in her companion’s ears— “ 1 told you what you Would meet with, 
Cicely: you will believe in fortune-tellers now! And he — he — that 
daring charlatan, presumed to warn me against breaking the Com- 
mandments!” 

Wrapping their shawls round them, and drawing their bonnets 


THE surgeon’s daughters. 27 

over their faces, they hastened through the now lighted streets, and 
gained their home and got in undiscovered. 

Sunday was the next day. In the afternoon Captain Erskine went 
as usual to visit his relative, and Florence afterward took her way 
to Mrs. Juniper’s, the girls having invited her. The disagreeable 
impression left by the Wizard’s words had faded away; reason had 
reasserted its power, and Florence was herself again. The surgeon’s 
family usually atl ended church on Sundhy evenings, but this night 
two or three of the girls got themselves excused on the score ot the 
heat, and stayed at home to chatter. When Florence made ready to 
go home, a servant was waiting to see her thither; but de Courcy, 
coming in at the moment, told the maid her services were not re- 
quired, and went with Florence himself. 

They walked away toward her home, in the sultry, overpowering 
air, their pace so slow as to be scarcely perceptible, she listening to 
his honeyed words. Ah! she thought not n >w of the old Wizard 
and his predictions; when with him, the fulness of her happiness 
was all in all. And thus conversing with each other, they neared 
the cottage. No other dwellings were near lo it, no prying eyes 
could be on view, and de Courcy drew Florence’s arm within his, 
little conscious, either of them, that the worst eyes of all were look- 
ing on. 

At the window of his small drawing-room stood Captain Erskine. 
He had come home betimes to make certain preparations connected 
with his fishing tackle and bait for the morning's excursion. In the 
midst of which, happening to look toward the road, he saw his 
daughter sauntering up the hill, comfortably leaning on the arm 
of— 

Of whom? The captain applied his double eye-glass to his eye, 
wiped it, turned it, and tried it again. 'Why— good saints protect 
himself and his outraged ancestors! — it was that connexion of Juni- 
per’s! They have got to the little gate now, and Florence’s hand is 
held in his as he leads her through it; and Gentleman Erskine’s 
grizzled hair raises itself on end with horror, and his gaze glares on 
his insulted pedigree, hanging opposite, and he brings his indignant 
face in close contact with the window-panes. 

Florence saw him ; and, turning sick with apprehension, wished 
de Courcy a hasty good night, and went in. 

Captain Erskine was by no means a meek man, but never had 
Florence seen him give way to passion so violent. A half-doubt ot 
the truth flashed across his brain. Florence he knew was beautiful ; 
while this fellow, he half acknowledged to himself, was what 
women and fools might call attractive. But the doubt was dis- 
missed at once: for Gentleman Erskine’s exclusive mind could no 
more bring itself to suspect Florence capable of an attachment for a 
man in the position of de Courcy, than for the begrimed official who 
periodically went up his chimneys: and indeed the ropes on which 
he himself stood were so exalted, that he could see little difference 
in the position of the two, the dispenser of medicines and the ramo- 
neur. Oh, terrible disgrace! — she had walked with this man (as he 
supposed) through the open streets! Worcester had seen her leaning 
upon the arm of an apothecary, that obscure emigre, w ho had never 
known his grandfather! How could this stain be wiped out? 


28 


THE SU HGEONpS DA UGHTERS. 


As a preliminary step, when his rage had somewhat expended 
itself, Captain Erskine forbade his daughter, in the most positive 
terms man could use, to join the party to Malvern on the morrow. 
She shivered, she cried, she pleaded for a retraction of his prohibi- 
tion ; all in vain. She might with as much effect have set on and 
petitioned Jupiter. 

“ What shall 1 say?” she sobbed. “ I I old them you consented, 
and they expect me. What excuse can 1 offer now?” 

“Excuse to them!” he cried, indignantly, “the obligation is on 
the other side. Make none. Or say it is my pleasure, if you 
choose: but, go you do not.” 

“ Oh, papa!” 

“ How dare you oppose your will to mine, even in thought?” he 
demanded. “ Are you out of your mind? 1 forbid you to think or 
to speak again about their scampering Malvern party. 1 would 
rather lock you up, Florence, than suffer you to join it. Disobey 
me if you dare.” 

When Florence rose the next morning, her head aching and her 
eyes heavy, she found a brief, stern note left for her by her father, 
who had departed on the fishing excursion. It reiterated his pro- 
hibition of the previous night; once more enjoining her not to dis- 
obey him. She wrote a line to Mrs. Juuiper, saying she was unable 
to accompany them, and sent it. In answer to it came Mr. de 
Courcy, requiring, in Mrs. Juniper’s name, to know the why and 
the wherefore. Florence simply said her father wished her not to 
go; but of his positive prohibition and his violence she did not like 
to tell. De Courcy supposed Captain Eiskine’s objection might be 
put down to the score of the heat, which was excessive. He treated 
the prohibition lightly. Persuasion is wondrously effective when 
uttered by loved lips, and Florence wavered. She made a compromise 
with her conscience, and assuring it that no persuasion should in- 
duce her to disobey her father by going to Malvern, she yet con- 
sented to accompany de Courcy to Mrs. Juniper’s, to tell them in 
person that she could not go. 

It was then ten o’clock, the hour fixed for starting. The party of 
invited friends were assembling, all eager and joyous, the carriages 
waited at the door, and Florence was tempted on all sides: her scru- 
ples were assailed, her somewhat confused accounts of her father’s 
“ wishes ” laughed at. 

“ The heat!” exclaimed Mrs. Juniper, catching up de Courcy *s 
notion. “ Well, it’s bad enough today, child, goodness knows; 
but it won’t melt you.” 

Mrs. Juniper added some convincing arguments, their matter 
sensible enough; the girls said go she should and must, de Courcy 
whispered a passionate entreaty, while the good-natured surgeon 
declared he would bear all the blame, and appease Captain Erskine. 
And Florence, overpowered by their persuasions and her own yearn- 
ings, at length yielded, her conscience pricking her, and her better 
judgment fighting a fierce pitched battle. 

It was half past, ten when they started, eighteen or twenty of 
them, a goodly cavalcade. Two post-carriages from the Crown in 
Bioad Street, and the surgeon’s chaise, de Courcy driving the latter. 

“You will go with me, Florence,” he had said to her, as they all 


29 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 

stood on the threshold of the door. But, even as he spoke, 
Georgiana Juniper mounted, without assistance, into the front seat 
of her father’s carriage; and Mr. Juniper, coming up, took Flor- 
ence’s hand, and placed her in one of the large ones by the side of 
his wife. 

The post-boys started. Down Broad Street, over the bridge, in- 
creasing their speed as they bowled along the open road leading to 
St. John’s, and lesseping it as they came to the houses. St. John’s 
passed, they drove through the turnpike-gate, and were fairly on 
the road to Malvern in all the heat. N one could remember such 
heat as hung that day over the Faithful City. 

Mrs. Juniper complained piteously. “ What’s my face like?” 
she suddenly asked. “ 1» it crimson?” 

“ I never saw any crimson so red, mamma,” answered Julia, 
turning iound from the box, where she was seated with young Mr. 
Parker, who was reading for the Church, there being a living in his 
family, to look at Mrs. Juniper’s face. He had just come down 
from Oxford, after being plucked in his Little Go. 

“ What a mercy it is that we thought of bringing that bottled 
perry!” continued Mrs. Juniper. “As to the ale and wine, 1 don’t 
think we ought to touch it till the sun’s gone down, unless we’d 
like to be laid up with brain fever. I never felt such a day as this.” 

“ Nor anyone else in this country, ma’am,” observed young Mr. 
Parker. “ It is said, that strange old wizard has predicted this day 
will be a merorable one. 1 think he is about right for once.” 

Julia Battlebridgc turned again and glanced at Florence with a 
meaning look. Florence sat silent and pale. She did not absolutely 
fear the words the strange man had said to her; she did not posi- 
tively fear that old prediction of her childhood; and yet both kept 
floating in her brain, mingling with the thoughts of her own dis- 
obedience, and what would be the anger of her father. That 
strange injunction of the wizard’s, bidding her not break any of the 
commandments, had come back to her with vivid vehemence. She 
had listened in resentment to the unnecessary warning, haughty 
pride buoyiu up Lor own self-sufficiency — she, Florence Erskine, 
break a Commandment! Yet, not thirty- six hours had elapsed be- 
fore she had fallen into the snare and the sin: she had broken the 
one which says, Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother. 

Wick was passed, and then the old and most dangerous bridge at 
Powick, and, passing the turnpike-gate, the horses bore up the 
ascent, turning off opposite the Lion. Soon the windings of the road 
brought the towering hills in view, with their various hues, blue, 
brown, green, and golden; and de Courcy saw that his pretty white 
sea-shells were indeed houses. Away cantered the postboys, on to 
INewland Common, its geese as plentiful as ever, leaving on their 
left the turning to Madresheld, Lord Beauchamp’s seat. The Swan, 
with its swinging sign board, passed on the right, the horses began 
their slow pace up the Link, noted for its upsets, and the party 
reached the village of Great Malvern at last. 

They drove to the Crown, and alighted. The carriages were to 
be left there. Mrs. Juniper was shown to the pleasantest sitting- 
room with the lovely view, ordered a plate of sandwiches for those 
who wished to partake of any, and said Hie party would return for 


30 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 


tea at six o’clock in the evening. It was a programme often carried 
out: luncheon on the hills; tea at the Crown or the Bellevue. 

Meanwhile the hampers of provisions— Mrs. Juniper’s fowls and 
tartlets and a-la-mode beef were taken from the carriages, now sur- 
rounded by a shoal of donkeys, with tlieir drivers; sunburnt women, 
boys, and girls. 

“ Are we to ride or walk up?” 

“ Who asked the question on such a day as this?” cried young 
Mr. Parker, looking down from the balcony. “ Mrs. Juniper shall 
have that one,” pointing to a large strong gray donkey. “ And, I 
say, my good donkey-women, give an eye to your saddles: they 
have a habit of turning, you know* ” 

Mr. de Courcy chose to walk; not a very wise determination, as 
Mrs. Juniper told him, with the thermometer at its present height. 
She did not know that the heat and the toilsome climb were to him 
as nothing, whilst he could thus keep by the side of Florence Ers- 
kine. And so they commenced their ascent of the hdl, toward St. 
Ann’s Well, and Mrs. Juniper sincerely wished there was a carriage 
way to it, that she might avoid the zig zag path of the jolting don- 
key. In later years one was made. 

They took de Courcy to an elevated spot, and then made him turn 
suddenly to look at the glorious beauty of the scene. The amazing 
expanse of prospect extending out around; the peaceful plains, lying 
broad and distinct; the blending together of wood and dale; the 
striking contrast of the green fields with the golden hue of the ripen- 
ing corn; Bredon Hill there, the Old Hills here, hills everywhere; 
the few mansions scattered about with a sparing hand, giving life to 
the landscape: and Worcester, fair to view, lying near, with its fine 
old cathedral and St. Andiew’s tapering spire. 

“Yes, it is very beautiful,” sighed de Courcy, drawing a deep 
breath of reverence as he lifted his hat. “ Great indeed are the 
glories of God’s marvelous works!” 

Mrs. Juniper’s voice brought him back to common life. “ If 
you'll believe me, them silly apes are going on to the top!” 

Turning from his somewhat prolonged reverie, de Courcy saw 
that the younger members of the party were continuing their way 
up the hill; the elder ones had dismissed their donkeys and were 
gathered in and about St. Ann’s Well. 

“Have you lost your wits, you young people?”' screamed out 
Mrs. Juniper again.” 

“ No, mamma,” replied Bessy, looking round. “ Why?” 

“ If you ride to the top in this heat, you’ll be half dead.” 

“ Oh, we don’t care for that. We shall be back for dinner.” 

Mrs. Juniper sat dow n inside the room at the Well. Some of the 
more active ones began to unpack the hampers. One gentleman, an 
old W orcester lawyer, who was rather puffy, threw himself fiat on 
the grass, wishing he could get a breath of air. In vain: the atmos- 
phere was still as death. 

“ Decidedly those young ones will be broiled*” he remarked. 

“ Why, here they are, back already!” exclaimed Mr. Parker’s 
mother, as she caught sight of the w T hite cloths of the donkeys 
slowly winding round from the heights above. “ We shall see how 
they feel after their broiling.” 


31 


THE SURGEON'S DAUGHTERS. 

“ 1 have heard tell of women in Ingee,” remarked Mrs. Juniper, 
extending her head outside to get a view of the broiled, “ who have 
voluntary sat right down in a huge fire to be roasted alive. I’d not 
say that there can lie much choice between that and the going up the 
hill to day, as them geese were doing; especially if ’twas a-foot, like 
Mr. de Courcy.” 

“ It was impossible to endure it,” called out Cicely, in explana- 
tion. “1 believe, if we had gone on,-we should have felt fit to 
drop, as mamma said, and the poor animals too. So that’s why we 
are back again.” 

Heavy and listlessly passed the time, in the unbearable heat, till 
they sat down to dinner, and sincerely did they wish their excursion 
had been deferred to a more propitious day. But young and healthy 
people cannot be still long; and some of them, when dinner was 
over, began to wander up the hill again. The heat was really 
dreadful, not perhaps quite so burning as it had been in the morning, 
for the blazing sun had gone in, but the oppressive, sultry sensation 
had increased. It seemed as if they could scarcely draw their 
breath; and ominous clouds of copper color were gathering in the 
sky. Unheeding the weather, and regardless of fatigue, de Courcy 
and Florence, side by side, at length reached the top of the hill: 
their companions had dropped off one by one, and they were alone. . 
There they stood some time, that he might admire tile vale of Here- 
fordshire; a fine prospect also, but not like the magnificent one on 
the other side. And then, turning to the left, they continued their 
way on the hill s summit, aad gained the little round building, 
scarcely larger or higher than a good-sized watch-box, known as 
Lady Harcourt’s Tower. 

Here they entered and sat down; and de Courcy, drawing her to 
his side, whispered once more his words of love. Eloquent words 
they were, more eloquent than they need have been, for where love 
reigns in a heart, as it did in hers, eloquence is needed not: and she, 
lost in the perfect rapture of the moment, put her compunctions of 
conscience aside. She forgot her disobedience; she forgot the cer- 
tain refusal of her father to sanction the future; she braved the 
thought of his anger, and promised to be the wife of Louis de 
Courcy. 

A flash of lightning startled them; and, as they rushed outside 
the tower, a long, loud, frightful echo told that the storm had begun. 
Never perhaps, has a storm come on with more rapid violence : the 
clouds had gathered together, black, lurid, angry, the forked light- 
ning playing among them; the thunder reverberated in the hollows 
of the hills; and the atmosphere appeared as if tainted with death, 
it was so si ill and terrible. 

“ We must make the best of our way down, Florence,” hastily 
cried de Courcy. 

But there came, flying on to the top of the hill, five or six of their 
party. The lawyer before mentioned and his daughter, two of the 
Juniper girls, and a lad of fifteen and his sister. They had been 
close to the top when the thunder commenced its roaring, and were 
running along now, to take shelter in Lady Harcourt’s Tower. 

“ 1 do not like it,” interposed de Courcy, as they were about to 
enter. “We shall be safer going down the hill than there.” 


32 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 

“ Not at all,” dissented the lawyer, who was puffing with his re- 
cent exertion. “ 1 remember, when a boy, a party of us being over- 
taken in this very spot by a most violent thunderstorm, We shut 
ourselves in here, there was a dooi to the place then, and were quite 
safe and com tor table; while in the valley below there were two 
cows and a milkmaid killed.” 

Still de Courcy did not like it; but notone was willing to descend 
the hill with him and brave the fury of the storm, preferring the shel- 
ter of Lady Harcourt’s Tower/ Their situation was appalling 
enough. Perched on the summit of one of the highest of the Mal- 
vern hills, the valley beneath them appeared as if it were miles away, 
and they planted in the air, on that nanow ledge between the earth 
and the sky, amid all the roar and battle of the elements. 

The storm increased in violence; peal succeeded flash, and flash 
succeeded peal without an instant’s cessation; the heavens were in a 
blaze of light from one extremity to the other, and a noise, as of a 
thousand cannons, seemed bursting close overhead. The poor girls 
were fearfully terrified. De Courcy tried to reassure them," but 
could not succeed: a scream from one, a shriek from another; tears 
and sobs; exclamations, that the lightning blinded and the thunder 
deafened them, were mixed with murmured prayei ’3 and dread 
whispers that they should never get down again alive. Florence 
was quiet, betraying less terror than the rest. Why was it? Be- 
cause she was by the side of him , her lover; and so all-absorbing to 
her was the consciousness of her love for him, that other emotions, 
and even the dread of danger, were partially lost in it: his protec- 
tion seemed to be all-sufficient for security, as it was for happiness. 
De Courcy had thrown his arm round her and drawn her to his side, 
where she quietly* stood, her face hidden against him, and her heart 
beating with ils sense of bliss. Cicely Juniper he had drawn to him 
on the other side. 

“ There!” he exclaimed, pointing to a distant part of the heavens. 
It was a small ball of fire, darting down to the earth. The sight 
was but momentary: before the others could look, it was gone. 

“ I must say 1 wish we were safe down,” exclaimed the old law- 
yer. “ 1 wonder how Mrs. Juniper and the rest feel at the Well?” 

Before the vrords had well passed his lips, there came a vivid flash, 
a terrific peal, and a scream from Cicely Juniper, who declared the 
tower was shaking. It may have been her fancy, or it may have 
been that the tower did shake with the shock of electricity, the 
others felt nothing; but Florence Erskine had fallen on the ground 
at de Courcy *s side. There was no perceptible change in her coun- 
tenance, except that it was white and still. 

“ She has fainted!” exclaimed the lawyer, stooping, and pulling 
at her hand. 

“ It is the faintness of Death!” shuddeied de Courcy, bending 
down his ashy face. “ I fear, 1 fear it is death.” He raised Flor- 
ence in his arms, as he spoke; he called her by every endearing 
name, unmindful now of the ears of those around; he pressed his 
white cheeks to hers, vainly hoping to feel signs of breath and life. 
But there was no further life tor Florence Erskine in this world, for 
she had indeed been struck and killed by lightning. And when the 
wailing and terror stricken party returned that night to Worcester, 


THE SURGEONS DAUGHTERS. 33 

carrying the dreadful tidings with them to Captain Erskine, the ill- 
fated young lady, cold and dead, had to be left at Malvern. 

It had, in truth, been a remarkable and fatal day, as the strange 
man, the Wizard, had foretold. On the following morning Cicely, 
in her horror and perplexity, disclosed to Mr. Juniper the particulars 
of their visit to this man, with his prediction regarding Florence, 
and the surgeon went to Lowesmoor at once to seek him out. But 
he had disappeared ; hew’asgone, none knew exactly when, certainly 
not whither; he had left the city. 

Mr. Juniper plied the landlady of the house with questions. She 
said that on the Sunday evening he had called her to his presence, 
paid her what little claims she had against him, with something 
over, and told her he should probably leave on the morrow. On the 
Monday morning while he was at breakfast she went up-stairs to 
make his bed, and there she saw his little black portmanteau ready 
packed. But she did not see him leave the house, or know at what 
hour he really went. 

Mr. Juniper could discover no more than that. Yet he would 
have liked to: he would have liked to put a few questions to the 
man, for he felt intensely puzzled by him. He had his reasons. 
This Wizard, or whatever he was or might call himself, had be- 
trayed a knowledge of things, which, it seemed impossible (unless 
by more than human inspiration) he could have known or learnt in 
any way. One instance shall be given. 

At a short distance from Worcester there lived two small respect- 
able farmers, related to one another and occupying adjoining farms. 
On the Saturday morning, the same day on which, later, the Juni- 
per girls paid their visit to the Wizard, a daughter of each of these 
farmers walked into Worcester as usual to keep market their bas- 
kets of cream-cheese, poultry, eggs, and butter being conveyed thither 
by a man on horseback. They wrangled as they w r alked: Phillis 
D. had brought her little sister with her, which displeased Esther J. 
“It’s not my fault/’ pleaded Phillis, defending herself warmly: 
“ when I came dow T n-stairs from putting my things on, there was 
Sally all ready in her bonnet and tippet, and mother said she was 
coming with me. How could 1 help bringing her, I’d like to 
know? 1 did try; 1 Said the walk would be" too much for her this 
hot weather; but mother* answered me shortly that the child was 
looking puny, and it would do her good.” 

“All the same, you should have "somehow contrived not to bring 
her just to-day,” retorted Esther. 

For these two young women were intending to get their fortunes 
told. Having heard the marvelous things said of the Wizard, they 
wished to benefit by his divinations as well as other people did, and 
perhaps get promised a husband apiece in some flourishing young 
farmer. The visit had been planned for the previous Saturday, but 
a matter prevented its being carried out; so they meant to pay it to- 
day without fail: if it were put off yet to another week, the Wizard 
might have left Worcester. Of course Sally’s presence w T as a tre- 
mendous drawback, but they must make the best of it. 

By dint of selling their excellent wares cheaper than usual, they 
were at liberty before one o’clock and bent their steps from the 
market-house down to Lowesmoor: promising Sally dire punish- 


u 


TTTE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS, 


ment for all time to come if she ever breathed a word of what she 
was about to see and hear. Rut these warnings, administered in 
going through Silver Street, produced an effect which they had not 
calculated upon. The child was seized with intense terror. She 
had heard of the Wizard, and entertained a most unreasoning fear 
of him, fully believing he would eat her up at sight, as the wolt ate 
up Red Riding Hood. Sally was a pretty little girl of ten years old, 
constitutionally timid, and she burst into a lit of sobs and cries. 
The j’oung women shook her and slapped her. Finding that did 
little good, they presently, atter turning out of Silver Street, bought 
her some ginger-bread nuts and bulls-eyes — which in a degree 
soothed the tears, if not the fear. 

The Wizard was alone when they entered. While he proceeded 
to tell the fortunes of the elder girls, the little one was put to sit on 
one of the chairs at the end of the room: but she wept aloud, and 
trembled from head to foot. Once it seemed to distract the Wizard: 
he paused in what he was saying, and looking round. 

“ Who is the child? What is she crying for?” 

“ She is my sister, sir, and she was afraid to come here,” answered 
Phillis D. ‘‘Sally, you naughty girl, hush your sobs directly. 
Who do you suppose is going to harm you?” 

” There is nothing here to harm you, my child,” spoke the wise 
man, gently. “ Don’t be afraid.” 

This address seemed to have quite an opposite effect from the 
kindly one intended. Sally, after a moment’s silence from dumb 
terror, went on sobbing worse than before. 

At the close of the interview, when the young women were de- 
parting well satisfied, for they had each been promised fairly good 
luck in life as well as a husband, the Wizard rose and put his hand 
upon Sally’s shoulder. 

“ Cry on, my child, for you have good cause to,” he said to her 
with sad impressiveness. “ You will reach home to find you have 
.lost the best friend you ever had in life.” 

They took their journey homeward, the young women by far too 
much engrossed by tlieir "own future to pay heed to the wise man’s 
parting words to the child, or speculate upon what they could mean. 
Sally was promised a new doll if she held h<3i tongue. 

Esther J.’s gate was the first reached, and she passed through it. 
Phillis and Sally D. went on to their own house: which they found 
full of distress and confusion. Their father was dead. Farmer D. 
had dropped down that morning in a fit of apoplexy. Poor little 
Sally had indeed lost her best friend in life — her father. 

Now the reader must make the best and the worst that he can of 
this. It is strictly tiue. 

Mr. Juniper did not know what to make of it. lie was at the 
farm when the daughters got in, having been the medical man sent 
for: and Phillis, beside herself with excitement and grief, repeated 
to him wliat the Wizard had said to the child. Mr. Juniper consid- 
ered it strange. It might of course have been but a saying at haz- 
ard, curiously fulfilled. The only other solution he could think of 
was — that the Wizard must in some way (there had been lime) have 
heard of Mr. D.’s death: yet it seemed unlikely. Some other un- 
accountable sayings of the man had previously become known to 


35 


THE SURGEON’S DAUGHTERS. 

Mr. Juniper, and he determined to pay him a visit the following 
week. But, as already suited, he went too late; the man was gone. 

Louis de Courcy never flirted with Georgy Juniper again; from 
that hour he was a wiser and a graver man. The death of the ill- 
fated Florence took effect upon them all, and henceforward the girls 
were less careless, more si aid and sober. Georgiana married in the 
course of years, and went over seas with her husband; and poor 
Cicely’s wedding never came at all. Her sisters, one after another, 
quitted the parent home; but she was left. And in later years 
Cicely grew to think her own life was the happiest, for it was free 
from care. 

Never again was the Wizard heard of in Worcester. Whence he 
had derived his information, that spirit of divination which he really 
appeared to possess, none could, or did, pretend to speculate — for in- 
deed this record of him has been no fancy sketch. Those who were 
living at the time, witnesses to the stir he caused, are dead and 
gone; and few of a later generation remain yet in Worcester to re- 
tain remembrance of the Chronicle. 


“Floreat Semper Fidelis CIVITAS. ,, 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


CHAPTER I. 

When Mr. Hobday addressed a select body of tlie electors of Still- 
bourne at the “ Flying Horse,” lie gave an account of himself and 
his career which may be taken as substantially accurate. He said; 
“ Look at me. I’m a man of the people, and proud to call myself 
so. I’d a deal rather stand where 1 do now, and be what 1 am— 
plain Joseph Hobday — than share the queen’s throne. 1 don’t 
greatly admire kings and queens myself; they’re out of date. (Mur- 
murs.) Ah, you may growl; but it’s the truth, and you’ll never hear 
anything but the truth from me. 1 say, I’m a man of the people — 
one of yourselves. My old father, as most of you have heard, used 
to keep the grocer’s shop at the corner of Market Square, where 
Stedman’s is now. Glad to see you here this evening, Mr. Stedman, 
and hope you’ll vote the right way when the time comes. Yes; he 
used to keep that shop, and he’d have liked me to succeed him. But 
my notion was that I could do better than that; and 1 think you’ll 
allow that I have done better. When 1 was a lad of eighteen 1 made 
up my mind about what 1 was going to do, and I didn’t trouble 
myself because my father and the neighbors laughed at me. 1 said, 
‘ I’m going to London to seek my fortune, and when I’ve got as 
much money as 1 want I shall come back to Stillbourne, and L shall 
buy land, and 1 shall build a house upon it, and 1 shall be member 
for this borough.’ Well; here I am, you see. I’ve bought my land, 
I’ve built my house, and before long 1 shall be your member. I’m 
a man of my word— always was. 

“ Now you may ask, ‘ What has your personal history to do with 
this election?’ (Ifear, hear.) Somebody cheers. Thinks himself 
precious clever, 1 da$e say. Now don’t you be in such a hurry, my 
good friend. My personal history has everything to do with this 
election. It tells you the sort of man that I am; and if you don’t 
want to know what sort of man y'our future member is, you must 
be greater fools than you look — which is saying something. I’m a 
man of my' word, 1 tell you. And I’m a Radical. Any of you here 
know what a Radical is? Any of y r ou know what a Conservative 
t is? Come, I’ll enlighten you. A Conservative is a man who is satis- 
fied with things as they are; a Radical is a man who means to make 
’em better. There you have it in a nutshell. If you like heavy 
taxes; if you like jobbery and favoritism; it you like the govern- 
ment of the country to remain in the hands of a small class; if you 
like being ridden over roughshod by r Lord Rye — then you’re Conser- 
vatives, and you’d better go and vote for his nominee. (A voice; 

( 36 ) 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


37 

‘ Wlio giv you yer first start in life, guv’nor?’) Who gave me 
my first start in life? Why, old Lord Rye, to he sure. Did anybody 
ever hear me deny it? He gave me a little money and he got me 
into a large grocery establishment in St. Paul's Churchyard; that’s 
what he did for me. 1 did the rest myself. It was a start in life, 
as you say; and I’m not ungrateful for it. He was a decent man: 
but he’s dead and gone these thirty years, and as for the present earl 
—who’s his third or fourth cousin, I believe— my opinion of him is 
pretty well known to you. 1 wonder what you think of him your- 
selves! I know what he thinks of you . Says he, ‘ Here’s the Hon- 
orable Tom, or the Right Honorable Dick, or Lord Harry; that’s 
my man. Now, you fellows, you go and do your duty and vote 
for him.’ Are you going to be tallied to like that? Are you going 
to be represented in Parliament by a lord or by a commoner? Lord 
Rye has his seat in the House of Peers— he won’t have it very long, 
perhaps; but he’s got it now, and that’s enough for him. Let him 
make the most of it. As for you, you’re going to return Joseph 
Hobday, a commoner, a Radical, and a man of the people.- You 
don’t like the purity of election here; but you must learn to like it. 
You’ll get no bribes from me. Can any man here say he’s had so 
much as the price of a pot of beer out of Joseph Hobday? (Ener- 
getic murmurs of dissent.) Ah! that don’t please you; and you 
think, maybe, you won’t send me up to Parliament. But you will, 
my good friends. If not this time, then the next. You may as well 
make up your minds to it. 1 said I’d sit for Stillbourne, and I’m a 
man of my word.” 

And so forth, and so forth. It was his habit to speak in that way, 
bringing out his short, sharp sentences with a pause between each of 
them. It was also his habit to convince rather by assertion than by 
argument, experience having taught him that, as regards the major- 
ity of mankind, the former method is quicker and surer than the 
latter. Like most self-made men, he had a strong and perfectly jus- 
tifiable belief in himself; and, like some other persons of his political 
way of thinking who have made themselves heard in the world, he 
was at heart an uncompromising despot. Indeed, it would have 
been strange if he had been anything else. He must have known, if 
any one did, that the mass of men and women are born to be ruled 
by the few who are born to rule. All his life long he had demanded 
and obtained obedience; and if that life had been one uninterrupted 
success— if at the age of sixty he had carried into effect every aspira- 
tion of his youth— this triumphant result was probably due quite as 
much to liis implacable obstinacy as to his business capacities. When 
he found people in the way, he shoved them aside — not with needless 
roughness, for his was a srood-humored disposition— still, forcibly 
enought to dissuade them from stopping his progress a second time. 
In all his dealings, whether with superiors, equals, or inferiors, he 
was dictatorial; and nearly everybody at once acknowledged his 
dictatorship, to save trouble. When that was admitted, he was not 
a disagreeable man to deal with. He was strictly honest; he was as 
generous as he could bring himself to be without doing violence to 
his decided notions of justice; he had the reputation of being a 
stanch fiiend. By the many hundreds of persons whom he had em- 
ployed during his long business career lie was considered a good 


38 


A. MAN OF HIS WORD. 


master — a little overbearing, a little coarse of speech at times, a little 
intolerant; yet not unkindly, and always ready to recognize and re- 
ward merit. 

If Air. Hobday had remained in business up to the last day of his 
life, it is probable that he would have lived and died a perfectly con- 
tented man; but several reasons prevented him from adopting this 
wise plan, and so trouble came upon him. For one thing, he felt 
bound, as a man of his word, to carry out his programme and be- 
come a landed proprietor on the borders of Kent and Sussex; and, 
for another thing, he had a daughter. Toward the middle period of 
his active life he had incidentally married, and, on finding himself 
the father of a little girl, had paid her the compliment of naming 
her Josephine after himself, her mother not having been a person of 
sufficient importance to merit commemoration. In process of time 
this insignificant lady died; and then Josephine was sent away to 
spend the greater part of the year at a high-class boarding-school, 
and her holida} T s with her mother’s relations. “ Let her have the 
best education that money can buy,” Mr. Hobday said: “and let 
there be an end of it.” By which he probably meant that he was 
too much occupied to be botheied with children. 

But a time of course came when Josephine could no longer be 
ignored with propriety, and that time did not find Air. Hobday un- 
prepared. In anticipation of it he had purchased the Sheldon Park 
Estate, as soon as that desirable property came into the market; in 
anticipation of it he had pulled down the old house aud had erected 
a gigantic red-brick mansion in its place; in anticipation of it he had 
made all arrangements for retiring from commercial pursuits; and 
shortly after Josephine’s eighteenth birthday he and she took formal 
possession of their new home. 

So far, so good. Air. Hobday had the satisfaction of repeating to 
all and sundry who came within range of his powerful voice that he 
had done what he had always said he would do, and that it only re- 
mained to get himself elected as member for Stillbourne in order to 
fulfill the destiny which he had marked out lor himself. But unfor- 
tunately there was as yet no vacancy, the borough being represented, 
as it had been for many years, by Colonel the lion. Arthur Denne, 
brother of Lord Rye; and there was therefore nothing to be done 
but to wait for the next General Election. This was vexatious; and 
what made it the more so was that there was literally nothing else to 
be done at Stillbourne. Mr. Hobday’s tastes did not incline him 
either toward sport or toward agriculture; he soon grew tired of 
roaming about his land, and perhaps he may have felt some secret 
annoyance at the complete unconsciousness of his existence displayed 
by the county. As might have been expected, the neighbors de- 
clined to recognize the new-comer, and Mr. Hobday would have 
been sorely put to it for companionsliip, had he not had his secre- 
tary, Mr. Sampson, to fall back upon. He had no longer any occa- 
sion lor the services of this mild young man with the prematurely 
bald head and weak eyes, protected by colored glasses; but he had 
brought him down from London partly out of genuine charity, and 
partly because it was absolutely necessary to his peace of mind that 
he should have some one to browbeat. He had tiied browbeating 
Josephine at first; but it had not been exactly a success. Josephinej 


A MAN OF TITS TVOTID. 


39 


it appeared, had inherited something of the paternal strength of will. 
She was neither disobedient nor undutiful; yet, somehow or other, 
she generally took her own way. and took it quietly, too; which was 
a puzzle to Mr. iiobday, who had always been accustomed to get 
1m way by making a noise. This daughter of his was a puzzle to 
him, indeed, in more ways than one. Where she had got her beauty 
from was a problem which might have puzzled anybody. Her 
mother had been plain of feature and constantly out of health; Mr. 
Hobday himself was a little roundabout man with a £liock of stiff 
gray hair which stood up straight from his head, a snub nose, and a 
mouth like a horizontal letter 1; yet from this unpromising union 
had sprung a tall and lovely brunette, whose graceful figure and 
well- shaped hands and feet would certainly have entitled her to be 
called aristocratic- looking, if her birth had not debarred her from 
claiming such epitnets. Mr. Hobday admired her after a fashion, 
but was not sure that she would not prove a trouble to him. He 
accused her of being a “ fine lady,” forgetting perhaps that he had 
caused her to be brought up among fine ladies: he was perpetually 
dinuing into her ears that she was nothing more nor less than a gro- 
cer’s daughter; he hoped she had not picked up an) 7 foolish notions 
derogatory to the dignity of labor. Oddly enough, he never thought 
of her being a trouble to him in the one way in which daughters 
and heiresses most commonly prove troublesome. Some day, when 
he should have fixed upon a suitable person, she would marry, no 
doubt; but he did not just at present think of anyone who would 
do, and there was plenty of time. Not for a moment did it occur to 
this peremptory little Republican to suppose that, in a matter of 
any importance, his subordinates would dare to set up their wishes 
iu opposition to his. 

Josephine, on her side, had no difficulty in understanding her fa- 
ther, but found him a little hard to conciliate. After the first few 
weeks she perceived that affectionate intimacy was not to be thought 
of, and abandoned all efforts in that direction. By way of compen- 
sation, she was perfectly free to choose her own occupations and 
amusements; she was provided with a piano, a pony-carriage, and a 
saddle-horse, and she was given to understand that if a lady -com- 
panion would add to her happiness, there would be no objection to 
the engagement of such a person. Josephine declined this offer, 
alleging, with an amiable intention, that her father’s company was 
sufficient for her. As a matter of fact, however, she had but little 
of that solace. Once she mounted him upon a steady cob, and took 
him out riding with her; but the cob taking it into his head to shy 
at a wheelbarrow, Mr. Hobday tumbled off and bruised himself a 
good deal; after which he refused to trust himself to any other means 
of locomotion than those with which Nature had endowed him. 
He took no pleasure in accompanying his daughter on long rambles 
about the country: nor in trutli had they much to say to one another 
on such occasions. Thus it came to pass that the greater portion of 
pool Miss Hobday’s time was spent in wandering aimlessly through 
the woods which bordered the Sheldon Park and Rye Court estates, 
and in wishing that she had never been born. 

Mr. Hobday did not go quite so far as that; but he very often 
wished himself back in the city. Perhaps he had never in his life 


40 


A MAX OF TITS WORT). 


welcomed a visitor so cordially as lie did one Mr. Staveley, who 
broke thiougk the tacit agieement entered into by the landed gentry, 
and came up to the new red-brick house one day to call upon its 
lonely inmate. Staveley was unmarried, so that, perhaps, his recog- 
nition was neither so compromising to himself nor so complimentary 
to the Hobdays as that of others among the neighbors would have 
been. He was also an idle man, to whom new types of humanity 
were an amusing study. He had never seen any one at all like Mr, Hob- 
day, and whan he came upon the latter, one market-day, haranguing 
a group of astonished farmers in front of the “Flying Horse’’ 
upon the beauties of peasant- proprietorship, he thought he should 
like to make his acquaintance. The acquaintance, once made, rip- 
ened quickly into something not unlike friendship. If Mr. Staveley 
had any political opinions, he kept them in the background. He 
listened to Mr. Hobday’s disquisitions with the most unfeigned en- 
tertainment, and by dint of abstaining from comments, gradually 
gained that ascendancy over his companion which a reticent man 
generally does gain over a garrulous one. Mr. Hobday used to say 
that Staveley was a clever fellow, though you mightn’t think it to 
look at him; he’d almost as soon have Staveley ’s opinion upon any 
question of reason or common sense as he would his own. It 
Staveley had not been considerably on the wrong side of forty and a 
confirmed bachelor, he might even have been inclined to think of 
him as a possible son-in-law. 

But neither Mr. Staveley nor Josephine contemplated such an 
eventuality as that; although they soon became allies. He was in- 
terested in the pale, beautiful girl, the mortal dullness of whose ex- 
istence he half saw and half divined; while she, finding that this 
stranger spoke a language which she understood, learut to look anx- 
iously for the sight of his round shoulders, his grizzled beard, and 
his good-humored, twinkling gray eyes. He had read a great deal; 
he appreciated her favorite poets; he knew something about art, and 
praised her water-color sketches rather more, perhaps, than he was 
justified in doing by the intrinsic merit of those performances. In 
him at least she found a fellow-creature who did not appear to think 
that politics and the heaping-up of riches were the only two subjects 
on earth worthy of a sensible man's attention. By degrees she was 
drawn to confide to him some of her perplexities and discourage- 
ments, and received in return a strong exhortation to patience. It 
was evident enough to Staveley that, with such a face and such a 
fortune, Miss Hobday would not be Miss Hobday long, but it may 
be doubted whether the matrimonial method of escape from per- 
plexity and discouragement had as yet suggested itself to the young 
lady in question. 

Destiny, which laughs at young ladies, philosophers, and retired 
grocers alike, decreed, on a certain fine afternoon in the month of 
August, that Josephine should carry her melancholy musings into 
those woods skirting the Rye Court property of which mention has 
already been made, and turther, that while pacing with slow, listless 
steps beneath the shade of beech and oak, she should suddenly be- 
come aware of a landscape painter busily plying his vocation in her 
immediate vicinity. He had pitched his camp stool as close as pps- 
sible to the boundary of the Hobday estate, toward which his back 


A HAN OF HIS WOBD. 


41 




was turned, and from which a low hank, surmounted by a wooden 
paling, separated him. It has already been said that Josephine, was 
interested in matters pertaining to the pictorial art. She drew noise- 
lessly nearer to the fence, and leaning over it, placed herself in a 
line with the unconscious stranger. Some twenty or thirty yards 
away was a spreading lime-tree, beneath which a herd of Lord Rye’s 
fallow-deer were shaking their heads and whisking their stumpy 
tails, and to the right of this, beyond the undulations of a well-tim- 
bered park, could be discerned a corner of the old Elizabethan man- 
sion which had been shut up ever since the arrival of the Hobdays 
in those parts. It was apparently this scrap of nature and architect- 
ure that the young man (his back was that of a young man) was 
transferring to his canvas, and he could not, of course, be aware that, 
by simply looking over his shoulder he might see something a great 
deal more beautiful than a liej’d of deer and a glimpse of mullioned 
windows. For quite five minutes Josephine stood there, watcliing 
him, and, as her eyes were remarkably good, she was able to admire 
the ease and dexterity of his handiwork; but at length, having occa- 
sion to re-light his pipe, he faced about abruptly, and revealed him- 
self as a good-looking young fellow of five or six and- twenty, with 
a fair mustache, a short pointed beard, and a pair of blue eyes, 
which opened very wide on discerning the fair critic beyond the 
fence. 

So surprised was he that he dropped his pipe and his match, and 
ejaculated “ Hullo !” — which seemed to render it necessary that 
Josephine should make some apology. She did so without any fool- 
ish embarrassment. “ I am afraid I startled you,” she said. 

“Well,” answered the young man, taking off his hat and laugh- 
ing a little, “ 1 must confess that you did. Miss Hobday, is it not?” 

Josephine inclined her head. 

“Ah, then we are neighbors, and we ought to know each other. 
Have you been standing there long?” 

“ Only a few minutes,” answered Josephine, smiling half involun- 
tarily in response to the sunny good-humored face which was turned 
up toward her. “Iam rather fond of sketching,” she added explan- 
atorily, “ and watching you was almost as good as taking a lesson. 
What a chaiming little peep one gets from here! And what a beau 
tilul old house it is!” 

“ Oh, well,” said the artist, ‘ this wing of it isn’t bad; but it is any- 
thing but a perfect house, you know. I believe two-thirds of it 
ought to be pulled clown and restored after the original design, if one 
only had money enough to do it. Of course I like it as it is, though, 
for the sake of association, and because it was the home of one’s 
boyhood, and all that.” 

He seemed to take it for granted that everybody must know who 
he was, and all at once it flashed across Josephine that this affable 
strangei could be no other than the Earl of Rye, K.G., in person. 
The paramount importance of wealth had been so often insisted upon 
in her presence by her father, that she had, not unnaturally, learnt 
to form a somewhat exaggerated estimate of the claims of birth and 
talent; and it was in an almost awestruck voice that she asked, “ Is 
it your house, then?” 

“ Oh dear, no,” replied the other with a laugh; “ it’s my father’s 


42 


A MAX OF IIIS WORD. 


house. 1 have a little shanty of my own on the other side of the 
park, where I sometimes come down to ruralize and economize. My 
name is Denne — Egbert Denne. Perhaps you may have heard of 
me?” 

Josephine shook her head. 

“ Oli, 1 thought it was just possible that you might,” the young 
man said, with a shade of disappointment in his voice; “ but there 
is no real reason why you should. I’m only a fifth-class artist.” 

‘‘1 think you must be .something a great deal better than that,” 
said Josephine gravely; “ and my not having heard of you proves 
nothing. I have never heard of anything or anybody.” 

Mr. Denne seemed a good deal amused by this comprehensive dis- 
claimer. 

“ Dear me!” he said; ” what an exciting future you have before 
you! It must be an odd sensation. I should like to feel it myself 
— 1 should like to hear your fiist impressions of the world.” 

“ 1 didn’t mean that,” answered Josephine. “ Certainly 1 don’t 
know much of the world; but what 1 meant was that 1 know noth- 
ing about art and artists. But I must go now,” she added, bethink- 
ing herself that there was a want of regularity about this interview, 
and feeling that it ought to be concluded. 

‘‘You said you were fond of sketching, though,” observed the 
young man who ma} 7, have desired to prolong the interview, in spite 
of its irregularity. “ 1 don’t know whether you would care to look 
at my daubs ; but I have one or two really good pictures, which 1 
have picked up cheap at different times, and 1 should be only too de- 
lighted to show them to ) r ou, if you would honor my cottage with a 
visit some day. And Mr. Hobday, too, you know,” he added, as an 
afterthought. 

Josephine was not quite sure that, even with this amendment, the 
invitation was one which ought to be accepted. “You are very 
kind,” she began, with a hesitation which her companion at once 
noticed and understood. 

“ It would be the proper thing for me to call on Mr. Hobday first, 
wouldn’t it?” he asked. ” Then I’ll do that, if 1 may.” 

“ We shall be very glad to see .you,” replied Josephine, with a lit- 
tle more stiffness of manner; tor she had her doubts as to the recep- 
tion likety to be accorded by her father to this amiable aristocrat. 
Then, with a bow, she went on her way through the woods, her dis- 
mal thoughts replaced by brighter ones, among which was a mem- 
ory of the admiring gaze with which Mr. Denne had not ceased to 
regard her during their short colloquy. 


CHAPTER 11. 

If, upon her return home, Josephine did not think fit to mention 
the chance meeting just recorded, it was not from any fear of being 
rebuked for unconventional behavior, but only because she felt sure 
that the subject would not interest Mr. Hobday in the least, except 
in so far as that it would aftord him an opportunity for indulging in 
some of his favorite sneers at the nobility, and because she did not 
wish to hear this particular sprig of nobility sneered at. During din- 


A MAX OF HIS WORD, 


43 


ner, therefore, she listened in silence to the customary political con- 
troversy stirred up by Mr. Sampson, whicn raged from soup to 
dessert, and ended, as it always did end, in the unconditional sur- 
render of that meek, but rather artful young man. But afterward, 
when she and her father were sitting in the garden, and when Mr. 
Staveley lounged up to smoke his evening cigar, and to announce, 
as an interesting bit of news, that young Egbert Denne had come 
down for a few weeks, Josephine remarked, without any hesitation: 
“ Oh, yes; 1 know he has. 1 met him this afternoon at the end of 
the wood, and 1 thought he seemed very nice.” 

Staveley raised his eyebrows slightly; but Mr. Hobday, who was 
in ihe habit of speaking to strangers himself and probably saw no 
objection to his daughter being equally unceremonious, only said: 
“ Met him, did you? Have any conversation with him?” 

‘‘A little,” answered Josephine. “He was sketching, and I 
stopped to look at what he had done.” 

“Ah. Let’s see! he ain’t the eldest son, is he? No; the eldest 
son calls himself a viscount or a baron, or something of that sort, 1 
suppose.” 

“ The eldest son is Lord Grinstead,” Mr. Staveley answered. 
“ Egbert is the youngest of the family. He is by way of being an 
artist.” 

“How ‘by way of’?” Josephine answered quickly. “ 1 only 
saw one half-finished sketch of his, but 1 am sure by that that he is 
really an artist.” 

“ Oh, he has talent,” Staveley agreed. “ He has never had success, 
in the sense that he has been a good deal talked about. And 1 be- 
lieve he sometimes sells a picture. When I said he was by way of 
being an artist, 1 only meant that he doesn’t follow his profession 
veryJaboriously. He has a little cottage in the park here, where he 
spends a week or two in solitude every now and then, and I think 
most of his work is done there. His studio in London is a sort of 
meeting-place for brother artists, and a store-room for the pottery 
and brass dishes, and brocade, and other properties which he is al- 
ways buying. The brother artists come to borrow those pretty 
things, and don’t always remember to return them. 1 doubt whether 
Egbert will ever be a famous man; but he is very nice, as you say, 
and you’ll find him a pleasant neighbor.” 

“ He said he would call,” remarked Josephine. 

“ Well; he's welcome, I’m sure,” said Mr. Hobday. “ I’ve noth- 
ing to say against lords’ sons as lords’ sons,” he added generously, 
“ not yet against artists as artists. A man can’t choose his father, 
and he has a right to choose his trade, provided he can make a liv- 
ing at it. But what 1 say to young fellows is this: 4 Are you doing 
any good to other people by your trade? And are you earning 
enough to keep yourself? Because, unless you’re doing the one or 
the other, there’s no reason, to my mind, why you should be allowed 
to swallow your share of meat and drink in this crowded little 
world.” 

And in truth this was very nearly what Mr. Hobday actually did 
say to his neighbor when that young gentleman redeemed his prom- 
ise, and called at Sheldon Park. 

“ They tell me you’re an aitist, sir,’' he began, after the first con- 


44 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 

ventional commonplaces had been exchanged. “I’m no judge of 
pictures myself ; but I respect capacity ot any kind when 1 meet 
with it. How many pictures have you had in the Academy, pray?” 

Not one. I am sorry to say,” answered the young man, smiling; 
“ but that may be partly accounted for by my never having sent one 
in. I’m very unambitious, Mr. Hobday/’ 

Mr. Hobday shook his head. “ That’s bad. That’s not the way 
to get on in ihe world. It I hadn’t had a good wholesome ambition 
I shouldn t be where I am now. And about how much do you 
make by your pictures, year in, year out, may 1 ask?” 

Mr. Denne laughed, and said he was afraid he couldn’t answer 
that question. “ Some years 1 pocket a few hundieds, others I get 
nothing at all. I don’t paint unless I am in the mood for it, and, to 
tell the truth, I haven't taken much trouble to find purchasers. ” • 

“ Then, sir,” returned Mi. Hobday, sternly, “ you must be either 
a rich man or a shameful idler.” 

But despite this candid and disparaging judgment, Mr. Hobday 
took kindly to young Denne, who was as good-natured as he was 
good-looking, and who submitted to criticism of every kind with 
complete equanimity. His friendliness and his charm of manner 
were difficult to resist. He did not make his firsl visit a formal one, 
but, without waiting for it to be returned, found a pretext for com- 
ing again the next clay, and lie next, and every day. He turned a 
courteous and attentive ear to lifc host’s verbosity, and, while avow- 
ing himself a Conservative in politics, seemed interested in hearing 
the Radical side of the question. Unbounded self-respect, self-reli- 
ance, and self-esteem, such as Mr. Hobday’s, are doubtless valuable 
qualities for promoting the success in life of their possessor, but in 
social relations they are apt to generate a dangerous blindness. The 
poor man really believed that Mr. Denne neglected the claims of Art 
and walked two miles every day in a scorching sun for the pleasure 
of hearing him talk, and he could not for the life of him help being 
flattered by such au acknowledgment of his influence. Perhaps, 
too, the instincts of the British plebeian may have led him to find 
some satisfaction in hobnobbing with the son of an earl, though he 
lost no opportunity of protesting to Egbert the scorn with which he 
regarded all hereditary distinctions. 

“ Call you the Honorable Denne, don’t they?” he said one day, 
with one of his loud laughs. “ Well, 1 put it to you as a man of 
sense, ain’t that a ridiculous word to stick betore your name just be- 
cause your father’s a lord? If they called you the Ornamental 
Denne, now, or the Unnecessary Denne, there’d be something in it, 
but why honorable f — that’s what beats me. 1 don’t mean to say 
that you’re ^honorable, you know; but if you come to that, why 
shouldn’t I call myself the Honorable Hobday?” 

“ Why not, indeed?” answered the young man. “ You will be 
spoken of as the honorable member, you know, w T hen you get in for 
Stillbourne. ” J b 

At this allusion Mr. Hobday reddened slightly, for, little as he had 
cared to conceal his intention of contesting the borough on the earli- 
est opportunity, he had as yet made no formal announcement to that 
elfect, and it was beyond question that the announcement, when 


A KAN OF HIS AA'ORt). 45 

made, would be excessively obnoxious to the family which he pro- 
posed to oust. 

“Well, Mr. Denne,” he said presently, ‘‘it lam ever elected for 
Stillbourne, 1 shall have won upon my merits. There’ll be no 
treating or bribing on our side; 1 can promise you that. Whatever 
1 do and say will be done and said in the light of day. ” 

Egbert, who knew perfectly well that his father’s nominee would 
be returned, whether or not he had bribery to contend against, 
answered smilingly that he was sure the fight would be a fair one, 
and that he hoped the best man would win. The ex-grocer bored 
him a good deal; but he was amply indemnified when Josephine 
joined him, and, in her half-timid, half-imperious way, began to 
catechise him about art and life in London and other matters upon 
which he was qualified to give inf orrnatiou. When Josephine entered 
the room, her father commonly walked out of it. It was his opinion 
that girls were a restraint upon rational conversation. He lieartity 
despised the other sex; although, as a matter of theory, he was pre- 
pared to include it in the electorate. He had discovered that his 
daughter differed from him both in tastes and convictions; but he 
did not on that account give her credit for originality of mind, 
merely setting her down as a little more perverse than other young 
women. Yet he could understand that Denne might take pleasure 
in her society. Denne, in his view, was a simple, well-intentioned 
soul— a little womanish, perhaps, with his pictures which he didn’t 
know how to sell, and his mania for pottery and old oak and such 
antiquated rubbish; still a harmless creature, and no bad substitute 
for the girls of her own age with whom he would have liked Jose- 
phine to associate, had such persons been available. Therefore he 
rather encouraged the friendship which had sprung up between the 
young people, did not forbid them to go out riding together, and, 
when Egbert offered to give Miss Hobday a few lessons in oil-paint- 
ing, only doubt ed whether it was right to accept such assistance with- 
out payment. 

The result was what any one but Mr. Hobday would have antici- 
pated. Staveley, for instance, felt no doubt as to how matters were 
going, and would go, and, being an old friend of Egbert Denne, 
thought himself entitled to speak a few monitory words. The two 
men were walking homeward together one evening, after dining at 
Sheldon Park, when the elder plunged abruptly into the midst of 
his subject, with: 

” Egbert, 1 should like very much to know whether you are going 
to marry that girl.” 

“ So should l,” returned the other composedly. 

“ Do you mean that you don’t know your own mind?” 

“ Not at all; only that I don’t know hers. I wish 1 did!” 

As it was quite dark, Staveley was able to indulge in a smile. He 
thought he Knew what the young lady’s inclinations were, if Egbert 
didn’t. But all he said was, “ You really are in earnest then? I 
was going to give you a lecture about flirting with inexperienced girls ; 
but this alters the case.” And then, after a pause — “ 1 suppose you 
have realized that there are objections?” 

“ 1 can’t say that I have,” replied his companion. “ On the con- 
trary, it seems to me that, if she accepts me — which I am by no 


40 


A MAX OF HTS TTOm 


moans sure that she will do — 1 shad be making about as unobjec- 
tionable a match as I could possibly make. Isn’t she good enough 
for me, pray?” 

“ fp many ways 1 should be inclined to think her too good for 
you, if you were not such a good fellow yourself. Still, there are 
objections. To begin with, she is a grocer’s daughter.” 

“ I don’t care a fig for that!” cried Egbert, with unintentional ap- 
positeness of illustration. 

“ Possibly not; but your father may.” 

“ My dear Staveley, don’t you know that the governor would turn 
head over heels with joy if he thought one of his sous was in a fair 
way of becoming a rich man? Ever since 1 have been of an age to 
mar^ at all, he has been imploring me to marry an heiress, and it 
isn’t likely that he will quarrel with me now for carrying out his 
instructions.” 

“ Ah, there you come to objection number two. Do you want to 
be called a fortune-hunter?” 

“ She won’t caU me that,” answered the young man quickly. 
“ She knows that it is not her money-bags that I have fallen in love 
with.” 

“ Well, so long as she acquits you, it doesn’t much matter, per- 
haps, what other people say— except one. His opinion is rather im- 
portant. Has it never occurred to you that Mr. Hobday is not ex- 
actly the sort of man to believe in disinterested affection, or to make 
handsome settlements for the benefit of an impoverished son-in- 
law?” 

Egbert did not answer for a few minutes. ” l*m not very much 
taken with old Hobdaj r , 1 admit,” he said at last; “ he is not a gen- 
tleman, and his manners leave a good deal to be desired. But, after 
all, he is her father, and one must make the best of him. Now that 
you mention it, 1 should think it is not unlikely that he will say 
some disagreeable things when the time comes; but I shall stop Ins 
mouth by telling him I don’t want any settlements at all. I’m not 
rich, but I can easily make more money than I do now; and if Jose- 
phine will take me as 1 am, 1 sha’n’t ask her father to add to my in- 
come.” 

” In which case,” observed Staveley, quietly, ” you might safely 
calculate upon Lord Rye’s withdrawing your income altogether. A 
grocer’s daughter with several thousands a year and a grocer's 
daughter without a penny are two different persons.” 

“ Now, Staveley,” returned the young man, “ if you can’t find 
any pleasanter tilings than those to sa} r to me, 1 shall have to request 
you courteously, but firmly, to shut up. The only question of any 
consequence is, Will Josephine accept me? If she does, all (lie rest 
is sure to come right.” 

“You talk like a youth and a lover, which is quite as it should 
be. 1 belong to the middle-aged division, and it would be strange 
if I didn't see what a nice bed of nettles you are preparing for your- 
self. When Mr. Hobday has turned you out of the house (1 only 
hope he won’t kick you out, but 1 should be sorry to answer for 
him), and when Lord Rye has sworn to cut you off with a shilling, 
you may as well come to me for advice. Just at present 1 shouldn’t 
feel justified in giving you any advice, except to go back to London 


A MAN OF HIS WOKD, 


47 

to-morrow and abandon the idea of proposing to a girl whose dispo- 
sition you can’t know anything about, and saddling yourself with a 
father-in-law who seems to have all the qualities which fathers- in- 
law ought not to have. But you wouldn’t listen to that.” 

“Well, no,” answered the other, “I certainly shouldn’t. I’ll 
apply to you if my affairs go wrong; but 1 don’t believe they will 
go wrong. The only thing that I am afraid of is being refused by 
Josephine; and if that happens to me, I shall be beyond the reach 
of even youi help.” 

But if modesty had permitted him to tell the truth, he would 
have had to confess that this latter possibility gave him very little 
uneasiness. Like the Lord of Burleigh, he had watched the maiden 
daily and, in his heart, he was very nearly as sure of success as that 
confident wooer. In fact— as is, perhaps, most frequently the case 
— question and answer had been silently exchanged some time be- 
fore Egbert Denne invited Josephine Hobday in so many words to 
share his humble lot. It was only a few days after the conversation 
recorded above had taken place that these two lovers were made 
happy. The spot which had witnessed their first meeting formed an 
appropriate scene for the verbal declaration which had to be made, 
and security from interruption was insured by Mr. Hobday’s ab- 
sence in London upon business. The astonishing imprudence which 
characterizes most betrothals was made conspicuous in this case by 
the circumstance that the parties had been acquainted for no more 
than three weeks; but when Josephine called Egbert’s attention to 
this fact, he only laughed, and said it was no fault of his that he 
had not known her longer, while she herself was compelled to admit 
that she felt as if she had knowm her future husband all her life. 

“ It is only your face and your name that are new,” she said. “ I 
have always missed you and wanted you ; only I didn’t know what 
it was that 1 wanted.” 

“ Then perhaps any other man would have done as well,” said 
Egbert, half laughing, half in earnest. 

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed vehemently, the color rushing into her 
face; “ how could 3 r ou think such a horrid thing as that? I never 
could have cared for any one but you. If 1 had not met you, I 
should have gone on leading the same dull, empty, miserable life 
until 1 died. Besides you, 1 have only my father in the world — not 
another soul ! And 1 am afraid he finds me a most unintciesting 
companion,” she added with a sigh. 

“ Then he deserves 1o lose you,” Egbert declared. “ By the way, 
I suppose I shall have to face him to-morrow. Do you think he will 
be very angry?” 

“ 1 don’t think so,” answered Josephine slowly. “ That is, un- 
less — ” here she paused lor a moment and glanced timidly at her 
companion — “ unless you ask him for a great deal of money.” 

“ My dearest girl, I am not goinir to ask him for a penny. 1 
sha’n’t refuse it if he offers it, because money is a good thing, and I 
don’t see why he shouldn’t give you a share of his. But if he pre- 
fers to keep it all for himself, let him! You are not afraid of being 
poor, are you, Josephine?” 

“ Not in the least. 1 think 1 should rather like it,” answered Jo- 
sephine, who had had no expeiience of poverty. ‘‘If we lived in a 


48 


A MAN OF HIS ATOM). 


small house like your cottage, we should see all the more of each 
other, and we should have no tiresome butler and footmen to listen 
to all that we said at dinner. So that leally it will be almost an ad- 
vantage if papa does refuse to give us anything. ” 

Egbert was not sure that he altogether concurred in that view of 
the case; but he did feel that, being so disinterested, he had no rea- 
son to dread Mr. Hobday; and it was in a spirit of serene compla- 
cency that he requested a private interview with that gentleman on 
the following morning. 


CHAPTER 111. 


Mr. Hobday received his visitor in what, for want of a better 
name, was called his study. He was at that moment eugaged in 
studying the book which of all others was the most agreeable to 
him, namely, his banker’s book, and was following the columns of 
figures up with his blunt forefinger to see whether any mistakes had 
been made in the addition. There were no mistakes, and the total 
on the right side was a noble one. Although Mr. Hobday had re- 
tired from business, he still amused himself from time to time with 
speculative transactions, one of which, as he had learnt in the city 
on the previous day, had just been brought to a successful termina- 
tion. Moreover, news tad reached him that Colonel Denne was in 
failing health, and might not improbably be forced to resign his seat 
before the next session. All these things had combined to put him 
into the best of good humors. He extended his left hand— his right, 
being loath to relinquish the beloved bank-book — and called out in a 
hearty, cheerful voice, “How do you do, sir? (ilad to see you. 
Take a chair.” 

“I’m afraid I’m interrupting you,” said Egbert choosing the 
most comfortable arm-chair that he could find, and sinking into it. 

“ Not at all— not at all,” answered Mr Hobday, politely; “ I’m 
quite at your seivice.” He took a last fond look at his balance, and 
then resolutely shut up the book, saying, “ Now, what can 1 do for 
you?” 

Egbert stroked his mustache, and took a minute or two for con- 
sideration. He was very much in love, his temperament was poetic, 
and his sensibilities were perhaps somewhat ultra-refinecL The 
thought of Josephine and the. hard, brisk, business-like presence of 
Mr. Hobday gave him a disagreeable impression of incongruity, and 
he wished that he had thought of making his demand by letter. “ 1 
want to speak to you, Mr. Hobday,” he began at length, “ about a 
matter which is of great importance to me.” And here he came to 
a full stop. 

“Come,” said A ” , “out with it! 



Can’t get it out? 


This important 


matter concerns somebody else besides yourself, don’t it? Concerns 
somebod}’ else rather more than yourself, maybe?” 

“ Hardly that,” said Egbert. 

“ 1 should say it did; but never mind. Now you’ve got a favor 
to ask of me in connecton with this matter; isn’t that so?” 

Egbert nodded. 

“Well, Denne, you won’t find me a hard man to deal with; but 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


49 


you’ll find me a man of business. A fool and his money are soon 
parted. I’m not a fool. Your father had better understand at once 
thz>t I shall make my conditions, and stick to ’em. I’ve always said 
that I meant to be member for Stillbourne, and member for Still- 
bourne I’ll be.” 

Egbert perceived that a bargain was being proposed to him. He 
hastened to decline it. ”1 think you are under a misapprehension, 
Mr. Hobday,” h^said. “ If I were asking you for money, it would 
no doubt be reasonable that you should make conditions, as you 
say; but 1 am not asking you for money. I would rather not con- 
nect your daughter’s name with money at all. And in any case, I 
couldn’t answer for my father, who has really nothing to do with 
the matter.” 

“ The deuce he hasn’t!” ejaculated Mr. Hobday, staring. “ And 
what, may 1 ask, has my daughter to do with it?” 

“Why, everything,” replied the young man, laughing a little. 
“ Don’t you understand that 1 am here to ask your consent to my 
marriage with your daughter?” 

Mr. Hobday whistled. “ Oh, that’s it, is it?” He seemed more 
amused than displeased at the first moment, but presently his feat- 
ures assumed a sterner expression, and he said curtly, “ Well, sir, 
what’s your income?— and what settlements are you prepared to 
make?” 

“ 1 don’t quite know what to say about settlements,” Egbert an- 
swered. “ As for my income, it’s a little uncertain just now, 1 con- 
fess; but 1 could make it larger by putting my shoulder to the 
wheel. My father gives me an allowance which 1 suppose might be 
considered liberal. In a word, I am poor; but 1 consider that I can 
aflord to marry.” 

Mr. Hobday gave a short laugh. “ Very sorry, Denne,” he said; 
“but it won’t do. What you offer doesn’t happen to tempt me. 
Many men, 1 know, would be ready to pay a good round sum for the 
sake of connecting themselves with the nobility; but I’m not one of 
them; and an Honorable don’t count for much, anyway. If 1 chose 
to go in tor that kind of thing, 1 don’t see why 1 shouldn’t marry 
the girl to an earl or a viscount. Plenty of ’em would be glad 
enough to take her, by all accounts. As for you, you’re not the 
man for my money. 1 bear no malice against you for trying it on; 
but 1 don’t feel called upon to support ornamental idleness; that’s 
all. Come, let’s say no more about it.” 

“ 1 told you before,” said Egbert, with some warmth, “ that I am 
not asking you to support me. I am asking for your daughter, and 
you can leave every penny you possess to charities, if you choose.” 

“Rubbish!” returned Mr. Hobday, knitting his shaggy brows. 
“ Don’t tell me! You know as well as 1 do that I’m not going to 
chuck about my hard-earned money among hospitals and asylums. 
Whatever I’ve got my daughter will have at my death; and I mean 
she shall have a handsome income when she marries too. But 1 
don’t mean you to share it with her.” 

Egbert was silent for a few moments. Appeals to the tender side 
of Mr. Hobday’s nature did not seem likely to be effectual; nor, in- 
deed, was it by any means certain that Mr. Hobda} r ’s nature had a 
tender side to be appealed to. However, he ended by saying: 


50 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


“Don’t you think your daughter's wishes ought to be taken into 
consideration? No doubt 1 am very unworthy of her; still 1 know 
from her own lips that she loves me, and that encourages me to per- 
sist.” 

Mr. Hobday did not think this argument deserving of articulate 
refutation. He only ejaculated, “ Oh, pooh, pooh, pooh!” in a de- 
risive manner; after which he got up, stuck his hands in his pock- 
ets, and walked away to the window. 

Egbert rose, too, and followed him. “ You can’t expect me to 
take this as final, Mr. Hobday,” he said. 

“ Can’t I?” retorted the other, wheeling round and facing him. 
“ Let me tell you that I do, though, young feller!” 

“ 1 do not take it so, at all events. It seems that }xni have noth- 
ing to urge against me, except that I am what you call an idler; and 
as to that, 1 can only repeat that 1 have no intention of idling any 
longer. I don’t believe you yourself could give any reason for your 
refusal — ’’ 

“ Now look here, Denne,” broke in Mr. Itobday, “ I’ll have no 
more of this. You don’t suit me. I’m not bound to give you rea- 
sons. I’m a man of my word, and 1 say this marriage sha’n’t take 
place. There’s an end of it.” 

“ As far as that goes, ’’ returned the young man, “ 1 also am a man 
of my word, and i venture to say that it shall take place. After 
your daughter is of age you won’t be able to prevent it, and we wjll 
wait till then, if necessary. 1 believe 1 cau answer for her as well 
as for myself.” 

Mr. Hobday frowned heavily. “ 1 wouldn’t be defiant, if 1 was 
you,” said he. 

“ You give me no choice,” replied Egbert. 

“Oh, very well!” rejoined Mr. Hobday — “ very well! Now 
you’ll just please to walk out of this house, double quick, march! 
And if ever 1 catch you about the place again, I’ll have you took 
by the shoulders and turned outside the gates. So now you’re 
warned.” 

It is difficult to retire with dignity under such circumstances, and 
Egbert was sensible of his failure to accomplish that feat. There 
was, however, nothing to be done but to retire; so he took up his 
hat and went. As he walked down the avenue it occurred to him 
that the first part of the programme sketched out by Staveley hav- 
ing now been fulfilled to the letter, he could do nothing better than 
carry out the sequel, and request advice of that prescient philoso- 
pher. 

Mr. Staveley lived all by himself in a rather large house, known 
as The Grange, which had no mistress for close upon halt a cent- 
ury. The mother of the present owner had died at the time of his 
birth, and he himself had never married. Keasons, plausible and 
otherwise, for his celibacy were forthcoming in sufficient numbers; 
but the days had long since gone by when liis friends desired to see 
him change his condition. In principle, a man with a certain 
amount of acres may always be said to neglect his duty by remain- 
ing single; but by reason of his freedom from home ties, Staveley 
had become, in a Scriptural as well as a literal sense, the neighbor 
of the whole country-side, which had acquired the habit of applying 


A HAST OF HTS WOKB. 


51 


to him in all difficulties, and was very well satisfied with him as he 
was. Besides, he had an excellent cook. He was surveying some 
recent improvements in his garden when Egbert Denne joined him, 
and he did not wait for the young man to unfold his errand before 
saying, “ 1 trust he didn’t kick you.” 

“ JNo; lie didn’t do that,” answered Egbert; “ but 1 am not sure 
that he wouldn’t have done it if 1 had stayed another minute in the 
room. What a confounded old ruffian he is 1” 

“ Ah, 1 told you you wouldn’t find him a pleasant father-in-law.” 

“ 1 should be willing to overlook his unpleasantness if he would 
consent to be my father-in-law; but he won’t. 1 spoke very civilly 
to him, and told him 1 didn’t want his money, and so on; but he 
wouldn’t listen to me for a moment. The end of it was that he lost 
his temper, and told me to take myself off, and never come back 
again. 1 can’t think why he should have behaved in that outrageous 
way.” 

“ Very likely he doesn’t know himself.” 

“That’s exactly what I told him!” cried Egbert eagerly. “I 
said, ‘ I don’t believe you could give any reason tor your refusal.’ ” 

“How extremely judicious of you! Was that what made him 
lose Ins temper?” 

“No; he flew into a rage because 1 ‘defied’ him, as he said; 
though really, if he had been at all a civilized being, he must have 
seen that I couldn’t possibly do anything else. 1 wasn’t going to let 
him shout me down, you know, and 1 was obliged to remind him 
that Josephine might marry me without his consent in three years’ 
time.” 

“ That again was a judicious and conciliatory sort of speech to 
make. What was his answer?” 

“ Oh, he bawled out that he was a man of his word, and I said 
‘So am 1;’ and so then he said ‘ Be off!’ — or something to that 
effect.” 

“H’m!— you seem to have been quite ingeniously stupid,” re- 
marked Staveley, stroking his beard meditatively; “ but it doesn’t 
much signify; for Hobday would undoubtedly have rejected you in 
any case. 1 wonder whether 1 ought to help you or not.” 

“ I don’t see how you can,” answered Egbert despondently ; “ but 
1 shall be eternally grateful to you if you will. You see, Staveley, 
three years is a precious long time to wait.” 

“Yes,” said the older man, with a laugh and a sigh, “there’s 
plenty of time to forget in three years. 1 don’t know that I can 
help you much; but I can tell you one thing — the only way in 
which 1, or anybody else, could bring Hobday to consent to your 
marriage woud be by persuading him that it was his own wish.” 

“ How the deuce are you going to do that?” 

“1 don’t Know; but circumstances sometimes give one a little 
assistance, and he is very vain. One need never despair of hum- 
bugging men of that stamp. For the present, you had better re- 
move yourself out of sight. Go up to London, or go abroad. Go 
anywhere, so long as you don’t stay here.” 

Against this course Egbert protested strenuously, alleging that 
life would be insupportable to him without occasional glimpses of 
Josephine; but he was constrained to admit that, under existing cir* 


52 


A MAK OF niS WOKT). 


cumstances, he could not ask or expect her lo meet him, and, as he 
had a high opinion of Staveley’s wisdom, he yielded at length to the 
representations of his friend, and consented to beat a retreat. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Hobday had been passing through some novel ex- 
periences. ll had suited him to assume an appearance of wrath in 
order to get rid of Denne, with whom, however, he had not really 
been very angry, regarding him as, at worst, but a harmless sort of 
fool. Having dismissed the young artist and his silly fancies, he 
was about to turn to affairs more deserving of the attention of a 
practical man, when certain words which Egbert had let fall recurred 
to his memory, and made him pause, it was not, perhaps, a matter 
of any very great moment that Egbert should have heard from 
Josephine’s own lips that she loved him; yet it might be well to 
warn her that she must not say such things again, without first ask- 
ing her father’s permission. So Mr. Hobday rang the bell, and sent 
a message to his daughter requiring her immediate attendance upon 
him. 

Josephine appeared promptly in obedience to this summons, and, 
as she entered the room, her father could not help noticing what a 
strikingly beautiful girl she was. After all, it was no wonder that 
young fellows should fall in love with her, and, to be sure, her life 
was a dull and lonely one. With some faint stirring of paternal 
affection, he advanced a few steps to meet her, and kissed her on the 
forehead, producing a sound like the drawing of a cork from a bot- 
tle. He was determined to be very kind, and to make all due allow- 
ance for the sentimentalities of a young lady fresh from a boarding- 
school. 

44 Sit down, my dear,” said he. 44 1 want to talk to you seriously 
for a few minutes.” But the habits of a lifetime are not to be dis- 
carded at will, and it was with his usual abrupt method of enuncia- 
tion that he continued: “Young Denne has been here, talking a 
pack of nonsense, and I’ve sent him to the right about with a flea in 
his ear. I’m not going to scold you : one can’t put old heads on 
young shoulders. Don y t let it happen again, that’s all. This fel- 
low won’t trouble us any more, and in future we mustn’t be in such 
a hurry to pick up acquaintances. I dare say you find it dull work 
living here. If you like to ask any of your school friends down, 
you know, you can. Very glad to see ’em. JSfow run away, my 
dear, and let me answer my letters.” 

Josephine, however, showed no disposition to move. 44 Do you 
mean that you have told Mr. Denne you won’t allow our engage- 
ment, papa?” she asked. 

Mr. Hobday looked a shade less amiable, and nodded. 44 Just 
so,” be answered shortly. 

44 Why?” Josephine inquired. 

44 Because he don’t suit me. If you’re disappointed, I’m sorry 
for it; but it’s your own fault for setting your heart upon a thing 
before finding out whether you could have it. As for the whys and 
the wherefores, 1 don’t see that they signify much. The thing isn’t 
to be; and there’s no use in talking about it.” 

44 Have you sent him away because he is poor?” asked Josephine, 
paying no sort of heed to this succinct summing-up of the case. 


A MAX OF HIS WORD. 


“ It seems to me that poverty is the last thing that we ought to 
object to. Surely we are rich enough already!” 

Mr. Hobday thought of ordering his daughter peremptorily out of 
the room; and this no doubt would have been the wisest plan, see- 
ing that he was quite unprepared to support his decision by argu- 
ment. But in a moment of weakness he consented to depart for 
once from the safe ground of sic volo, sic jubeo , and said: “ Poverty 
has nothing to do with it. For the matter of that, I should rather 
prefer a poor man to a rich one, provided he was honest and hard- 
working, and didn’t give himself airs. Offer me such a son-in-law 
as that, and 1 sha’n’t ask him to make any settlements. Nobody has 
ever called me grasping.” 

“ Then it must be his rank that offends you, and that is most un- 
just; because, after all, it is no fault of his that he is a gentleman. 
1 daresay he would have made quite as good a grocer as other peo- 
ple, if he had been called to that state of life.” 

“ He would have made nothing of the sort,” retorted Mr. Hobday 
warmly, a horrid suspicion crossing his mind that his daughter, in 
spite of her grave face, was laughing at him; “he would have 
made an infernally bad grocer. There’s no stuff in the man, I tell 
you. He’s a butterfly— a fine gentleman— a good-for-nothing fel 
low! But I’m a fool to go on excusing myself like this. Once for 
all, 1 don’t mean you to marry him, and you’ll oblige me by drop- 
ping the subject.” 

“Papa,” said Josephine, rising, and laying her hand upon her 
father’s arm, “ 1 love him.” 

Mr. Hobday hardly knew what to say. Such contumacy was with- 
out a parallel in his experience. It had happened occasionally to him, 
as to other men, to meet with opposition to his wishes; but he had 
always had the whip hand of those who opposed him, and there- 
fore, whenever he had said, “ Oblige me by dropping the subject,” 
the subject had been dropped like a hot potato. Yet here was his 
own daughter, a mere child, paying no more attention to his re- 
quest than if it had never been uttered. “ Josephine,” he said, 
severely, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself. What business 
have you to talk about loving a man whom 1 have forbidden you to 
marry? It’s impertinent and disobedient. Indelicate too,” added 
Mr. Hobday, bethinking himself of a more appropriate adjective. 

“1 am not ashamed of saying that 1 love him,” answered the 
girl. “Why should 1 be, when I know that he loves me? Y"ou 
have given me no reason why I should not, love him, nor why I 
should not marry him.” 

“ I have given you the best of all reasons why you should not 
marry him,” returned Mr. Hobday, “ and that is that I don’t choose 
it. i suppose you know that 1 am a man of my word, and that you 
have no more chance of marrying Denne now than you have of mar- 
rying the Emperor of China. If you see nothing to be ashamed of 
in loving a man whom you can't marry, you have been uncommonly 
badly brought up, and that old tabby of a schoolmistress has robbed 
me of my money. Now you had better go away and think over what 
I’ve said. In future, 1 hope >ou will know better than to waste time 
in arguing after you’ve got your orders.” 


54 A MAX OF HTS Y’OTID. 

“ Yes, papa,” answered Josephine quietly, “ 1 shall Know better 
in future.” 

Thereupon she retired, leaving Mr. Hobday with an uneasy feel- 
ing in his mind that, notwithstanding this sudden submission, she 
had not yet spoken her last word. 


CHAPTER IV. 

The truth is that a man must be very hard- hearted, as well as very 
thick-skinned, to endure domestic estrangements with equanimity. 
Mr. Hobday’s skin was thick enough for anything; but, unfortu- 
nately for himself, his heart was far less hard than his words. He 
was ever ready for a light, and indeed rather enjoyed fighting; but 
when once the quarrel was over — that is to say, when he "had carried 
his point — he was willing and anxious to make friends again. Jo- 
sephine absolutely declined to make friends. Blie did not sulk; she 
showed a smiling face at meal times, and was somewhat exaggerated- 
ly obedient to her lather’s slightest wish; yet she held him at arm’s 
length, and altogether ignored his advances. When Mr. Hobday 
heard that Egbert had actually left the neighborhood without mak- 
ing any attempt to see Josephine again, he became more than ever 
eager to blot out all memory of the past, and went up to London for 
the express purpose of buying a peace offering for his daughter. 
Josephine rewarded him with a rather disdainful smile and a cere- 
monious word or two of thanks. She hardly deigned to glance at 
the diamond and ruby bracelet, which she at once laid down upon 
the table, and Mr. Hooday had the mortification of seeing the velvet 
case in the same spot for three consecutive days, it having evidently 
remained there untouched since the moment of its presentation. 

“ 1 wouldn’t leave valuable jewelry lying about like that if 1 was 
you,” he growled out at last. “ Do you know what that bracelet 
cost?” 

“ A thousand pounds?” asked Josephine carelessly. 

A thousand pounds for a bracelet! The girl’s off her head!” 

“A hundred pounds, then?— ten pounds? 1 never thought of 
valuing presents by their price before; but as this one is so precious, 
1 had better go and lock it up.” 

And she suited the action to the word before her father could 
make any rejoinder. 

She was not often so outspoken as in this matter of the bracelet — 
the gift of which, it must be owned, argued a deplorable lack of dis- 
crimination on the part of the donor. An equivocal phrase or two, 
an occasional touch of sarcasm, a determination to be interested in 
nothing— these are hardly offenses of which any overt notice can be 
taken; but they served the purpose, which they were doubtless in- 
tended to serve, of making Mr. Hobday restless and uncomfortable. 
He complained of the girl’s behavior bitterly to Staveley, whom he 
made the recipient of iiis confidence with regard to the whole affair. 

“Anybody would think 1 had been a brute to her, to see the way 
she treats me,” lie said; “ yet what are the facts? I’ve done all for 
her that any father could do for his daughter, and a deal more than 
most do. I pay her bills without asking any questions ; she has plenty 


55 


A MAX OF HIS WORD. 

of pocket-money, and if she wants more, why Ihere it is for her. 
Any amount of it. I can’t call to mind that 1 ever refused her any- 
thing in the whole course of her life till the other day, when 1 had 
to tell her — and 1 did it in the kindest possible way, mind you — that 
young Denne wouldn’t suit me as a son-in-law. Dash it all! a man 
has some right to choose his own son-in-law, 1 should hope! The 
tact is I’ve been too indulgent with her.” 

“ Oh, 1 don’t think you ought to reproach yourself with that,” 
Staveley answered. “ One should always be indulgent with women, 
who are pioverbially unreasonable, you know. And 1 think you 
were very wise to dismiss Egbert Denne. It always looks best to 
take the initiative in these cases.” 

“ How the initiative? 1 don’t quite follow you,” said Mr. Hobday. 

“ Well, of course you know that his people wouldn’t have heard 
of the match. There is no older blood in England than the Dennes’, 
and Lord Rye has rather unusually strong class piejudices.” 

54 Lord Rye be hanged!” interrupted Mr Hobday, with consider- 
able displeasure. “ My daughter’s as good as his son any day of the 
week.” 

“ Not a doubt of it; but you would never convince him of that. 
Happily, you don’t mean to try and, as 1 said before, I think you 
are very wise. ’ ’ 

“ Stuff and nonsense!” retorted Mr. Hobday, angrily. “It 1 
chose to offer my daughter to Lord Rye to-morrow, he’d marry her 
himself, and be thankful. Don’t tell me!” 

Mr. Staveley smiled incredulously, but did not seem disposed to 
prolong the discussion. He caught sight of Josephine crossing the 
lawn at that moment, and hurried after her ostensibly to wish her 
good-morning, but in reality to whisper to her, 4 ‘ Don’t be discour- 
aged, Miss Hobday, and don’t judge by appearances; but have a lit- 
tle faith and patience. 1 think 1 begin to see my way.” 

If, however, this good-natured conspirator was counting upon pro- 
moting Josephine’s marriage by dwelling upon imaginary opposition 
to it, his scheme was frustrated by an event which took place in the 
autumn, and which was destined to bring about a serious and public 
breach between the Houses of Denne and Hobday. The sudden death 
of Colonel Denne not only created a vacancy in the representation 
of Still bourne, but found the family to whom that borough and its 
voters had always been considered to belong unprepared with any 
candidate to put forward in the room of the deceased member. Mr. 
Hobday had his address out the day after the funeral, and was vigor - 
- ously conducting his canvass from house to house before Lord Rye 
so much as knew that any one had had the audacity to think of op- 
posing him. When the news was communicated to that potentate 
he could hardly believe his ears, and declared that the man must be 
mad. Nevertheless, he was more angry than sane men generally 
allow themselves to be with lunatics. He was not predisposed in 
Mr. Hobday’s favor, to begin with. When he had found himself 
obliged to part with the Sheldon Park estate it had grieved him that 
a man who had begun life as a grocer’s errand-boy should become 
the purchaser, and his own nearest neighbor; and since that time his 
agent had reported to him certain trivial claims and disputes in 
which the aggressiveness of the new proprietor had been conspicu- 


56 


A MAK OF HIS WORD. 


ous. 41 And now, to crown all,” cried Lord Rye indignantly, “ the 
fellow attacks me in a moment of domestic affliction, with the sole 
purpose of causing me annoyance; for he must be perfectly well 
aware that his election is a moral impossibility. This comes of sell- 
ing one’s property to tallow-chandlers! Set a beggar on horseback 
and we all know what the consequence will be.” 

Lord Rye was an honest and upright, if somewhat narrow-minded, 
old gentleman, whose temper had been a little soured by the persist- 
ent unkindness of Fortune. With large estates, he had never had a 
large rent-roll, and he was imbued with an unfortunate conviction 
that it behooved him to avoid all apparent retrenchment. This drove 
him to make retrenchments which were not apparent, and were 
therefore the more galling. lie had an exalted idea of the impor- 
tance of his position, and an immense veneration for his family, 
which perhaps hardly deserved so much honor at his hands. The 
last generation had bequeathed him nothing but embarrassments, 
and the rising one, progenies mtiosior , bade fair to be the ruin of him. 
Between the two lie stood, a weary Atlas, bearing upon his bowed 
shoulders a burden of which no kindly Hercules seemed likely to 
relieve him. Of his sons the eldest, Lord Grinstead, had urged on 
a wild career upon the turf for some years, and was now involved 
in hopeless pecuniary difficulties, while the others had all turned out 
badly in more or less conspicuous fashion. Egbert was by far the 
best of them, and even Egbert was rather expensive, besides being 
too indolent and easy-going to be any comfort to his much- worried 
father. 

Nevertheless, it was to Egbert that application was made when it 
was found necessary to oppose a legitimate candidate to the auda- 
cious Hobday. He and his father were staying together at Rye Court, 
having come down to attend Colonel Denne’s funeral, and Egbert 
was sitting in the library one morning, thinking about Josephine, 
and wishing that he could meet her by chance, when a message was 
brought to him that Lord Rye wished to see him at once. He 
found the agent and the land steward with his father; but these left 
the room as lie entered it, and Lord Rye looked up, with a troubled, 
pre-occupied air, from the papers which he had been perusing. 

“Oh, Egbert,” he said, “ 1 sent for you to say that, as far as I 
can see, you will have to enter Parliament. You have no objection, 
1 suppose?” 

* Well, if it*s the same thing to you, 1 think 1 would rather not,” 
the young man replied. “You see, 1 mean to go in for painting 
rather more seriously than 1 have done, and that will take up all my 
time. Couldn’t you find somebody else?” 

“There is nobody else that 1 know of,” answered Lord Rye. 
“ Grinstead would never consent to stand, and we ought not to lose 
time in finding some one, now that that, tallow-chandler has actually 
set to work. By the way, who is the man Hobday? Do you know 
anything about him?” 

Egbert had not breathed a word upon the subject of his intimacy 
with his neighbors, both his own judgment and Staveley’s advice 
being in favor of provisional silence. He did not answer his father’s 
question now, but only repeated that he was disinclined to go in for 


A MAST OF HIS WOHT). 57 

a political career. The truth was that he feared to exasperate his 
friend the enemy beyond hope of reconciliation. 

“ Nobody is asking you to go in for a political career, ” returned 
Lord Rye irritably. ‘ T am quite aware that you will never take the 
trouble to go in ior any career, political, pictorial, or other. 1 mere' 
ly wish you to compose an address — anything will do — and to make, 
perhaps, half a dozen speeches. Surely that is not too much to ask.” 

Egbert muttered an ambiguous reply, which his father took to 
imply consent, and retired to consult the indispensable Staveley, who 
surprised him by expressing cordial approval of the scheme. 

“ Nothing could have happened more opportunely for you,” that 
sage counselor opined. “ You are sure to be returned, and Hobday 
won’t be able to help thinking more highly of you for it. An M.P. 
is the one social dignitary whom he respects — so strange are the 
fetishes which men will set up for themselves! If you meet him 
you must be very polite, but distant; and mind, you aie not to meet 
Miss Hobday at all.” 

“ All very fine,” grumbled the young man; “ but you don’t con- 
sider my feelings. How long is this to go on, I should like to know. 
And what do you suppose she is thinking of me all this time? I’ll 
tell you what, Staveley; I’ve a great mind to throw stratagems 
overboard, and revert to plain sailing.” 

“ Just as you like,” answered the other. “ Only in that case you 
will sail straight into a stone wall, and sink immediately. Come, 
Egbert, let me have a little time and opportunity. If 1 fail, you will 
be no worse off than you were at starting.” 

“ 1 don’t know about that,” said Egbert; but he ended by bow- 
ing to a will somewhat stronger than his own, &nd in due course of- 
fered himself to the electors of Stillbourne in the Conservative inter- 
est. 

The promises of support which he received were numerous and 
hearty; but he sometimes doubted whether his return was a matter 
of such absolute certainty as his friends affirmed. Such a thing as 
a contested election had not been known in Stillbourne within the 
memory of man, and the voters were evidently not insensible to the 
luxury of possessing and giving effect to a political opinion for once 
in a way. The bal lot afforded a protection to malcontents of which 
they had hitherto had no opportunity of availing themselves; and 
there were a few malcontents — perhaps even a good many. Mr. 
Hobday’s eloquence may have increased the number of these; but 
the majority of them had a substantial grievance in the inactivity of 
trade consequent upon Lord Rye’s frequent and prolonged absences 
from home. On the other hand, Egbert had always been personally 
popular, and his demeanor at this juncture added to his popularity, 
affording as it did, a striking contrast to that of his competitor. 

The rival candidates met once, and only once. Egbert was walk- 
ing down the High Street, accompanied by a band of his supporters, 
when Mr. Hobday, similarly escorted, was seen approaching from 
the contrary direction. The younger man immediately stepped 
across the road, took off his hat, and held out his hand with a pleas- 
ant smile, saying, “ How do you do, Mr. Hobday?” But that un- 
compromising foe scowled, and refused to return the salute or accept 
the hand offered to him. 


58 


A MAX OF TTTS “WORD, 


“I'm a plain man, Mr. Denne,” said lie, “ and 1 don’t want to 
have any humbug. You’ve chosen to fight me here. Very good: 
fight it is. But 1 ain’t going to shake hands over it, 1 can tell you!” 

” I thought it was rather you who had chosen to fight me, Mr. 
Hobday,” answered the young man sweetly; “ but never mincl that. 
1 hope our political differences need not prevent us from being 
friends in private life.” 

“ We’re not friends in private life!” shouted Mr. Hobday; but 
Egbert, with another bow and smile, had already passed on, having 
palpably scored in the eyes of the spectators by his genial civility. 

Mr. Hobday wended his way up the street to an" accompaniment 
of groans and hisses, and, as he passed a corner, a nasty, dirty little 
boy threw a handful of mud at him and ran away. The missile took 
effect upon Mr. Hobday’s broad chest, bespattering his collar and 
face, and causing him to lose all control over his temper. It was 
while smarting under this insult that he betook himself to the F1} t - 
ing Horse, and delivered that speech, afterward so widely com- 
mented upon, in which he boasted that he held Lord Rye in the hol- 
low of his hand, and could crush him to powder at any moment, if he 
were provoked too far. “ Yes, gentlemen, he may send lifs Honor- 
able Dicks and Toms to smirk and smile at me, and his rapscallions 
to fling dirt at me; but he’ll find that I’m not the man to be cajoled 
or intimidated. Rye indeed! I’ll make him puli a wry face before 
I’ve clone with him!” 

These were brave words; but they were not followed up by acts. 
If, as he lind declared, Mr. Hobday had power to crush Lord Rye, 
he did not use that power; nor, when pressed by inquisitive persons, 
would he give any explanation of his threat. Perhaps he was a lit- 
tle ashamed of it; for he was unusually quiet and depressed for 
some days afterward. When he returned home in the evening, after 
haranguing and arguing all day, he did not meet with the sympathy 
which most men are accustomed to look for at such times. Joseph- 
ine, dispirited by Egbert’s prolonged silence, and disgusted with a 
contest in which she could not wish for the success of either side, 
was becoming less and less amenable to discipline, and scandalized 
her lather by the things that she said. One evening, to his amazement, 
she announced that she had made up her mind to be a Conservative, 
and in answer to the indignant queries put to her, explained that, 
although she knew next to nothing of the principles of political par- 
ties, she liked the tories best because they were not Radic als. 

“ Thank you for I he compliment,” growled out Mr. Hobday, who 
had already listened to several such speeches in good-humored con- 
tempt, but whose patience was now fast ebbing away. ” You’re a 
dutiful kind of daughter, 1 must say; and you make a man’s home 
a pleasant place for him.” 

4 4 Vou lost a fine opportunity of getting rid of me, papa,” ob- 
served Josephine, smiling. 

44 Give me another, and maybe I won’t let it slip.” returned her 
father. ” 1 told you before that I’m not particular. Please your- 
self, and you 11 please me. As tor that young beggar Denne, 1 won- 
der you haven’t pride enough to drop talking about him, now that 
he’s dropped you.” 

Then he went away into his study and repented a little of his 


A MAK ' OF HIS WORD. 59 

coarseness — as indeed he did more frequently than was generally 
supposed by those who knew him. 

The next day, while he was glancing at the newspaper after break- 
fast, Josephine invaded his solitude, dragging after her the mild Mr. 
Sampson, who looked dreadfully fiighlened and bewildered. 
“ Papa,” she said, “ 1 have been trying to hit upon some way of 
doing what you wish, since it seems that 1 am not to be allowed to 
do what 1 wish, and 1 think it would be a good plan for me to 
marry Mr. Sampson. You want to get rid of me, and Mr. Sampson, 
I am sure, will be willing to take me to the uttermost ends of the 
earth, provided that all expenses are paid. You asked me to offer 
you a son-in-law who was hard-working and didn’t give himself 
airs. Mr. Sampson works hard, when he gets the chance, and can- 
not be accused of giving himself airs. In short — ” 

“ What is the meaning of this tomfoolery?” interrupted Mr. Hob- 
day in a stentorian voice. “ Sampson, sir, how dare you lend your- 
self to such a disrespectful joke? Take care, sir — take care! I can 
make allowances for silly schoolgirls; but hang me if I’ll put up 
with any of your impudence!” 

“ Indeed, sir, 1 know nothing about it,” cried the unhappy man 
in an agony of alarm. “ ft was Miss Hobday who brought me in 
here — very much against my will — and 1 hadn’t an idea of what she 
was going to say. 1 — I wouldn’t marry her for the world, 1 do as- 
sure you, sir.” 

“ Of course, if Mr. Sampson deserts me 1 can say no more,” re- 
marked Josephine; “ but it is a pity; because 1 really can’t think of 
any one else who w r ould do. The coachman, unfortunately, is mar- 
ried already, and John, the gardener — ” 

“ Get out!” shouted Mr. Hobday, taking two steps toward his sec- 
retary, who got out with the utmost precipitation. “ As for you, 
miss,” he continued, turning to his daughter, “ you had better go 
up to your room and stay there till you can behave yourself. I never 
heard of such unladylike conduct!” 

“ But I always thought you didn’t wish me to be a lady, papa?” 
answered Josephine, with an air of innocent surprise. “Hoy diffi- 
cult it is to give satisfaction!” 

This absurd incident discomposed Mr. Hobday greatly. It was 
not agreeable to him to be turned into ridicule in the presence of 
his underlings; but that vexed him less than the conviction, forced 
upon him by repeated experiences, that his daughter was not in the 
least afraid of him. He did not know how to manage people who 
were not afraid of him ; he began to doubt whether he knew how to 
manage women at all. With men, however, he flattered himself 
that he did know-how to deal, and there w r as one man in particular 
with whom he was resolved that his dealings should be short, sharp, 
and decisive. Probably it w r as in some degree with a view to re 
covering his shaken self-confidence that he made up his mind to 
seek at once an interview with Lord Bye which he had long been 
meditating. 

Making his way across the fields by a short cut, he reached Rye 
Court early enough to find its owner still at breakfast, and was ad- ■ 
mitted into the dining-room, where Lord Rye was munching dry 
toast ftnd sighing over the morning’s batch of correspondence, Lord 


60 


A MAX OF HIS WORD, 


Rye was a tall, spare old gentleman with a Roman nose, a clean- 
shaved and rather long upper lip, and iron-gray whiskers which met 
beneath his chin. His loreliead showed those three horizontal fur- 
rows wliick are the trace not so much of years as of worry. His 
eyes, of a greenish-brown color, were deepl} 7 sunk under over-hang- 
ing brows! Possibly he was very much astonished at seeing Ins 
visitor, but he did not look so. He rose, bowed with grave cour- 
tesy, and pointed to a chair. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Hobday,” he said. 44 Please sit down.” 

Mr. Hobday hesitated a little before availing himself of this invi- 
tation, but finally decided to do so. He put his hat dowm upon the 
table, and resting his great coarse hands upon the top of his stick, 
stared at the old'nobleman, not without a certain novel sense of em- 
barrassment and compunction. Something in the atmosphere of the 
place — in the old-fashioned furniture, in^the oak-paneled walls, in 
the gloom and stillness, and in the vast space, impressed him a lit- 
tle, in spite of all the practical common sense upon which he so 
prided himself. Though not in general an imaginative man, he 
seemed at that moment to lealize in himself the embodiment of 
modern wealth and democracy, and in Lord Rye that survival of 
ancient feudalism which these aie destined inevitably to sweep 
away, and he could not help thinking it almost a pity that so much 
grace and dignity should have to disappear from the world. How- 
ever, he had not come there to indulge in sentiment, and the sound 
of his own rasping voice sufficed to harden him once more. 

44 Lord Rye,” he began, “ I’ve got to say some things to you 
which you won’t like, but we can do business in a friendly way, if 
you choose. Only 1 shall speak plainly, because we'd best under- 
stand each other.” 

Lord Rye bow T ed again, and looked impassive. 

”1 dare say you’re aware,” continued Mr. Hobday, “that your 
cousin, the old lord, was kind to me when I was a boy.” 

“ 1 had not heard ol it,” Lord Rye answered. 

44 Well, so it was. He didn’t do anything very out of the way lor 
me, but he did something, and I’ve borne it in mind. I’m not a 
man who leaves his debts unpaid. ” 

“ 1 am sure,” said Lord Rye, with laborious politeness, “ that my 
relative would have considered any little assistance that he may 
have been able to render you amply repaid by the — er — successful 
use which you have made of your opportunities.” 

44 1 don’t know why he should,” rejoined Mr. Hobday bluntly. 
44 My getting on in life hasn’t done him any good. 1 say, I’m un- 
der an obligation to the family, and I’m anxious to discharge it. 
Such as it is. you know: we mustn’t overvalue things.” He raised 
his voice a little, so as to dominate that of his interlocutor, who was 
beginning to say something: 44 You’re feeling pretty sore with me 
for trying to get this borough out of your hands. Very natural that 
you should; but there’s no help for it. 1 mean to be Member for 
Stillbourne — always said 1 would ; and I'm a man of my word. It’s 
a whim, which I’m ready to pay a handsome price tor. Now I’ll 
tell you what I’ll do with you, Lord Rye. You shall withdraw all 
opposition to me in this election, and I’ll hand j r ou over Lord Grin- 
stead’s acceptances, to the value of £20,000 odd, to do what you like 


A MAX OF HIS WORD* 61 

with. 1 believe I’ve bought eveiy scrap of paper that he has out, 
and I’ve got the lot in my breast-pocket at this moment.” 

The oiler was not very delicately made; but it might have tempt- 
ed some men. Lord Rye, who knew that he could not raise £20,- 
000, who had already sold the only portion of his estates that he 
was entitled to dispose of, and who would have submilted to almost 
any personal privation rather than that his eldest son should incur 
what he considered the eternal disgrace of passing through the 
Bankruptcy Court, felt little emotion, except wonder "and contempt. 
He remained silent for a minute or two, ca’sting about him for ade- 
quate words, and it was with no intention of being insulting, but in 
perfect good faith, and even with a touch of pity, that he said at 
last: 

“ I don’t know whether lean make you understand, Mr. Hobday, 
that your proposition is one which no man of honor could possibly 
entertain. Perhaps you have not realized that you are asking me to 
do nothing less than to sell you a seat in Parliament, at the expense 
of the party to which 1 have the honor to belong. 1 am not very 
well acquainted with the commercial code of morality, but 1 assure 
you that these things are not done among gentlemen.” 

Mr, Hobday was not put out of countenance. “ Oh, come!” he 
said; “ I’ve read a little history, though 1 don’t set up to be an ed- 
ucated man, and 1 think I’ve heard of seats in Parliament and votes 
in Parliament being sold before now. Don’t let us have any hum- 
bug about it. You’re not bound to find a member for the borough. 
Let the Tories send down another man, and I’ll beat him easily 
enough, provided you don’t oppose me. The plain English of it is 
that you’ve got to choose between doing as I ask you and some- 
thing very like ruin. And mind you, this isn’t an offer that I’d 
make to everybody; for I’m by no means sure that 1 can’t win in 
spite of you. ” 

“ Then, my good sir, pray do your best — and your worst,” said 
Lord Rye, getting up. ‘‘I am only sorry that you should have 
thought fit to come here upon such an errand.” 

Pie paused, evidently expecting this to be taken as a dismissal by 
his unwelcome guest, who, however, did not stir. Mr. Hobday, 
notwithstanding the equivocal bargain to which lie was ready to be 
a party, was an honest man, according to his lights, and respected 
honesty in others. If he had been able to believe in Lord Rye’s 
sincerity, he would not improbably have offered to tear up the ter- 
rible acceptances there and then; for he was capable of a generous 
action, and was so rich that he would hardly have missed the money 
that he had paid for them. But, upon reflection, he found that he 
couldn’t believe in Lord Rye. He assumed that aggressive manner 
which was never more conspicuous in him than when he suspected 
some one of trying to get on his blind side. In a loud voice, and 
without preface of any kind, he began to make accusations which 
were quite unintelligible to the subject of them. He begged to say 
that he was not a fool— he could see through a brick wall as Avell as 
most people — it Lord Rye imagined that he (Mr. Hobday) w T as going 
to hand over a shilling of his money to any member of the Denne 
family without having an equivalent for it, he was very much mis- 
taken. And then, becoming more explicit — “ It won’t do, my lord, 


62 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


and that’s the long and the short of it. 1 told your son that 1 
wouldn’t support an ornamental idler; and what l-ve said I stick 
to. You must find some other way out of the difficulty.” 

“ I may be very dull, Mr. Hobday,” said Lord live; “ but I am 
afraid 1 must ask you to tell me what you are talking about.” 

“ Why, I’m talking about your son Egbert, who came to me a 
good while ago, wanting me to consent to a marriage between him 
and my daughter,” answered Mr. Hobday rather sulkily. “ Am 1 
to understand that you didn’t know of this?” 

He turned his sharp, beady eyes incredulously upon Lord Rye, 
who, for his part, was feeling a little incredulous also. 

“ 1 can hardly suppose,” said the latter, “ that such a proposal 
can have been seriously made; but in any case y'ou acted very prop- 
erly’- in refusing to hear of it, Mr. Hobday. * I trust that your 
daughter has not been caused much annoyance by this — this foolish- 
ness"” 

“ Well, 1 don’t know about that,” Mr. Hobday replied, with a 
short laugh. ” I believe she is rather put out about it So was 
your son at first; but he seems to have recovered. Perhaps yam 
have put him on the scent of some other heiress.” 

“ Your extreme discourtesy,” answered Lord Rye, coldly, ‘‘re- 
lieves me of any hesitation in telling you that if 1 had desired my 
son to many an heiress, it would have been some one of his own 
rank in life. I should certainly never have permitted him to make 
such a match as the one that you mention.” 

“ Well, this does beat everything!” Mr. Hobday exclaimed, in 
genuine amazement. “ Staveley prepared me for something of 
the kind; but I wouldn’t believe him. Here are yam, about as hard- 
up as you can be, and here am I, a man to whom your eldest son 
owes £20,000 — and now you tell me that you wouldn’t permit the 
youugest to marry my daughter, who’ll have money enough one of 
these days to set the whole of you on your legs again! Why, it’s 
downright insanity, yam know!” 

Lord Rye rather liked this. He had been within an ace of losing 
his temper before, but now his equanimity was restored, and he an- 
swered, smiling tor the first time since the beginning of the inter- 
view: “1 have no doubt, Mr. Hobday, that my ideas upon many 
subjects would strike you as insane. Your surprise at my preferring 
some slight pecuniary' inconvenience to the sale of my conscience or 
a misalliance on the part of my son is probably not unnatural. To 
tell you the truth, 1 have as much difficulty in understanding your 
point of view as you have in understanding mine.” 

44 Y'ou’re getting upon too high a horse, my lord,” returned Mr. 
Hobday, somewhat nettled. ” Y r ou can call £20,000 a slight 
pecuniary inconvenience if you choose; but, hang me if you shall 
call my daughter names!” 

“ 1 am not aware of having been guilty of such a breach of good 
manners,” answered Lord Rye, still smiling. 

‘‘ Y T ou said ‘misalliance.’ Now that’s rubbish, you know. It 
was 1, not you, who refused to sanction this match; and though 1 
don’t value a lord above a chimney-sweep myself, I’m bound to say 
that I don’t believe the most, prejudiced aristocrat in the kingdom 


A MAX OF 11 rs WORD. 


63 


would deny that a girl with my daughter’s means is entitled to look 
for a husband a little higher in rank than the Honorable Egbert.” 

Lord Rye regretted that he must hold an opposite opinion; where- 
upon Mr. Hobday waxed wroth, and a somewhat animated discus- 
sion followed, in the course of which both parties completely lost 
sight of the original object of their interview. They were only re- 
called to a sense of the absurdity of this wrangle by the entrance of 
Egbert, whose astonishment at the sight of his father and the oppo- 
sition candidate engaged in earnest conversation was equalled only 
by the embarrassment of the disputants. 

Mr. Hobday speedily decamped, only remarking as he left the 
room, V Well, my lord, I’ve made you a fair offer, and you’ve re- 
fused. You’ll have youiself to thank for the consequences.” 

“ What in the world brought him here?” asked Egbeit, as soon 
as the door had closed with a slam. 

Ho longer feeling bound to keep up appearances, Lord Rye sunk 
into the nearest chair, and groaned. “ That man will bring about 
my death!” he ejaculated. “ What he means by it 1 can’t conceive, 
lor 1 have not only never done him an injury, but he himself con- 
siders that he is under some obligation to the family. However, he 
has laid a mine to blow us all up, and 1 suppose he has gone away 
now to light the slow-match.” 

Egbeit was then informed of the course pursued b} r Mr. Hobday 
in buying up Lord Grinstead’s notes of hand, and of the conditions 
upon which he had declared himself ready to part with those val- 
uable securities. “ Naturally,” concluded Lord Rye, “ I sent him 
about his business as soon as he would go; but he wouldn’t go for 
some time. And, by the wa3 r , that reminds me that he made a curi- 
ous assertion about you. He said you had actually proposed to his 
daughter. ’ ’ 

‘‘That was quite true,” answered Egbert; “ and he might have 
added that he turned me out of his house for my presumption. 1 
don’t consider myself beaten yet, though; and 1 think you’ll admit, 
when you see Miss Hobday, that she is a prize worth striving after.” 

“ When 1 see her! Do you mean that you are enamored of this 
tallow-chandler’s daughter, then?” asked Lord Rj^e, in amazement. 
“ I supposed that, it you had really offered marriage to her at all, it 
must have been her money — ” 

“ Certainly not,” interrupted Egbert. “ 1 don’t care whether she 
has a million or a sixpence. If 1 marry her, it will be for her own 
sake, and for that alone.” 

Lord Rye’s disgust was too deep for vrnrds. He could only mut- 
ter, *‘ Well, well; I don’t know what we are coming to, I’m sure!” 

” Grief,” answered his son laconically. “ At least, it appears so. 
1 don’t know whether you mean to pay up all this money for Grin- 
stead; but if so, I suppose we shall be pretty well done for. It 
wasn’t from any mercenary motive that 1 proposed to Miss Hobday; 
but 1 should have thought you would have done all you could to 
back me up, considering how often you have urged me to marry 
money.” 

‘‘ INot for all the wealth of the Rothschilds,” exclaimed Lord Rye 
energetically, ‘‘would I acknowledge that man as a connection of 
mine! No!— I can submit to ruin, which seems likely to overtake 


04 


A MAX OF HJS WOTU). 


me through no fault of my own; but I will never consent to dis- 
grace. It is needless for me to thi eaten you, or to forbid this mar- 
riage, for, if you wait until you are earning an independent income, 
1 am perfectly assured that it will not take place.” 

With that, he rose and went out of the room, leaving Egbert to 
his reflections. 


CHAPTER Y. 

The young man’s thoughts were not of the most cheerful kind. 
With his elbow resting on the table, and his right hand caressing his 
beard, he sat idly and half -unconsciously surveying the great dining- 
hall which visitors to Rye Court so much admired on show-days. 
The dark oak paneling, the caived chimney piece, which reached 
from floor to ceiling, the inlaid cabinets, the broad sunbeams sloping 
through the m ullioned windows and deepening the gloom of dark 
corners — all these things he noted with an aitist’s appreciation of 
light and shade, and with a regretful recollection of past j^ears, when 
troubles had been less frequent, when his mother had been still alive, 
when Grinstead had not yet gone to the dogs, and when the old 
house had always been full of guests. It would have to be let now, 
he supposed. Time had been when the raising of £20,000 would 
have been almost a trifle to the Earls of Rye, who .had formerly 
been territorial magnates of the first water; but those good old days 
were gone forever. Having once begun to descend the hill, the 
family laid rushed downward, as families which follow that path 
generally do, with alarming rapidity, and the present head of the 
great house of Denne had nothing that was great left to him, except 
his name and the chivalrous, if somewhat exaggerated, veneration 
with which he regarded it. 

Egbert, who belonged to the latter half of the nineteenth centuiy, 
did not altogether share this feeling; yet he could not but admit that 
in marrying the daughter of a successful grocer he would be marry- 
ing beneath him. This admission did not shake his resolve: his 
view of the case was the modern one — that a lady may be permitted 
to lack ancestry so long as she possesses a handsome fortune. But 
his father, it seemed, was of another opinion; and his father -was very 
obstinate, as was also Mr. Hobday. For himself, he was conscious 
of being somewhat deficient in obstinacy. He had always taken life 
easily, giving way in most things, as he had done in the present 
matter of his entering Parliament, because it was not worth while to 
have a fuss; and although he did not waver in his allegiance to Jo- 
sephine, he did doubt a little whether circumstances might not in 
the long run prove too strong for him. It was all very well to talk 
about earning an independent income; but in his heart of hearts he 
was inclined to aeree with Lord Rye that, if he postponed his mar- 
riage to that epoch, he would never marry at all. Possibly old 
Staveley might be able to suggest something in the way of encourage- 
ment. He took his hat presently, and strolled down the avenue in 
the autumn sunshine, thinking that it could at all events do no harm 
to consult the oracle. 

However, he was not destined to be consoled by his ingenious 
friend that day; for as the morning was a fine one for walking, and 


A MAN OF HIS WORT). 


65 


as he was in no great hurry, he went a little out of his way in order 
to revisit the scene of his first meeting with Josephine, and when he 
reached the spot whom should he see, leaning over the boundary 
fence in an attitude significant of listless dejection, but Josephine 
herself! He hastened to join her, and though her first woids were, 
“1 can’t speak to you,” she was persuaded, without very much 
difficulty, to consent to a brief interview, upon the understanding 
that her lover was not to cross the frontier, which he had shown 
signs of attempting to do. 

“ I may sit upon the fence, though, I suppose,” said Egbert, 
suiting the action to the word. 

“Very well,” answered Josephine, who had retreated a pace or 
two, “ but you must not come any further, and I can only stay a 
very few minutes. We ought not to meet at all.” 

“ Why not, when we are engaged?” asked Egbert reproachfully. 

She snook her head. “We are not engaged; how can we be, now 
that everybody is against it? 1 did not mind so much about papa, 
because there was no real reason for his objecting, and 1 thought 
perhaps he would give in if he saw that we were determined; but 
he has just told me that Lord Rye would not hear of such a thing as 
our being married.” 

“ Well, what of that? My father has even less right to object than 
yours.” 

“ Oh, I don’t think so. They both have a right to object, I 
suppose; only I can’t understand papa’s objections, and I do quite 
understand Lord Rye’s. It is much better that everyone should 
keep to his or her own class, and 1 can’t make myself your equal.” 

“No, because you are my superior in every way,” returned the 
young man quickly. 

“ Ah, you don’t really mean that; and if you did, your thinking 
it would not make it so. Just now you don’t mind, because — be- 
cause — ” 

“ Because I love you.” 

“ Well, because you are in love with me. But some day it would 
be different, and even now I don’t think you would quite like tell- 
ing your friends that you were going to marry a grocer’s daughter.” 

There was a degree of truth in this assertion which Egbert was 
honest enough to leave uncontradicted. “ The only question of any 
importance,” he said, “ is whether we love each other sufficient^ to 
be constant in spite of drawbacks. If we do, no drawbacks can be 
worth considering. 1 am sure of myself; may I not be sure of you 
too?” 

She did not answer; so, after a minute, he repeated his question. 
“ Won’t you say that you love me as much as you did, Josephine?” 

“ Oh, you knoio!” exclaimed the girl, without looking at him. 
** How could I change? It is only that I can’t bear to think of your 
doing a thing which you might live to regret.” 

It was at this juncture that Egbert, who had hitherto been sitting 
sideways on the fence, with his legs loyally on his own side of the 
boundary, swung himself over and committed a trespass on Mr. 
Hobday’s property. The most inexperienced reader will hardly re- 
quire to be told what followed this lawiess act. Josephine protest- 
ed ; but her protests were not listened to, nor in truth were they very 


66 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


forcibly urged. The lovers parted, after exchanging promises of 
eternal fidelity, and one of them, at all events, felt that in combating 
the misgivings of the other he had overcome his own. 

“You’ll let me see you again, won’t you?” he asked, beseeching- 
ly; but upon this point Josephine was firm. “ No,” she answered; 
“ I don’t choose to deceive my father, even if 1 can’t obey him. In- 
deed, I shall tell him that we have met to-day; and 1 think you 
ought to tell Lord Rye.” 

Egbert laughed, “ Oh, I don’t think that is necessary,” said he. 
“ I don’t consider myself bound to keep my father informed of all 
my proceedings, and I doubt whether he would thank me if I did. 
1 must trust to chance, then, for my next sight of you, and 1 warn 
you that I shall assist chance if I can.” 

Josephine, without saying anything, made a slight gesture of dis- 
sent. She hardly expected that Egbert should understand her feel- 
ing, which was nevertheless a very natural one. It seemed 'to her 
that she was entitled to resist her father’s will so far as to remain 
faithful to an absent lover ; but she was determined that there should 
be nothing clandestine about her rebellion. She kept her wrnrd, and 
communicated the fact of her having encountered Egbert to Mr. 
Hobday, who showed less displeasure than might have been antici- 
pated, merely saying, “ This must not occur again, mind.” 

Mr. Hobday’s attention was engaged with matters which he con- 
sidered more important than the philanderings of foolish boys and 
girls. The polling day was drawing near, and, as it approached, it 
became more and more evident that the chances of the Radical can- 
didate were scarcely worth taking into account. He himself had no 
expectation of being returned. All that he hoped for was a minority 
of votes sufficiently large to give him some sort of standing at the 
next election, when the opposite side should be represented by some 
less formidable person than a member of the Denne family. He 
knew something of Lord Rye’s affairs, as well as of those of Lord 
Grinstead, and he foresaw that at no distant day the whole House of 
Henne would fall with a crash, and that Egbert would have to re- 
sign his seat. 

This cheerful anticipation enabled him to bear with fortitude the 
very unfriendly reception accorded to him when, accompanied by 
two or three bold spirits who had avowed themselves on his side, he 
drove down to the Flying Horse, there to await the counting of the 
votes. He was made to wait a long time, the proceedings being an 
entire novelty to Stillbourne, and the officials meeting with many 
difficulties in the performance of their duty. Mr. Hobday’s support- 
ers were discouraged and discouraging, and the landlord of the 
Flying Horse w'as exceedingly grumpy— as well he might be, seeing 
that, by espousing the wrong cause, he had kept his house empty on 
a day when he ought to have been driving a roaring trade. At the 
Rye Arms, over the way, all the magnates of the county were as- 
sembled, having felt it their duty to deprecate factious opposition in 
a public manner. The free and independent electors paraded the 
streets, cheering Egbert lustily, and howling at Mr. Hobday’s snub 
nose whenever that feature could be discerned at the first-floor win- 
dosw of the Flying Horse. It was not until half-past eight o’clock 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 67 

in the evening that the following result was announced from the 
Town Hall: 

Henke 845 

Hobday 22 

Majority ..... 328 

An amiable eccentricity had led half a dozen electors to record 
their votes in favor of both candidates, and about a score more had 
spoiled their voting-papers in other ways. 

Egbert, in a few well-chosen words, expressed his deep sense of 
the honor conferred upon him, and then Mr. Hobday was given to 
understand that he would be expected to say something. He had got 
ready a short speech in anticipation of the popular verdict, but he had 
not been pepared for so crushing a defeat, and in his wrath he sub- 
stituted an impromptu oration which came straight from his heart. 

“ Electors of Still bourne, —Nobody could mix with you for a week 
without discovering that you are one and all fools; but I didn’t 
know that you had such a pot of cowards among you. There are 
more than two-and- twenty of you who’d have voted against Lord 
Rye if they’d dared. Don’t tell me! f hope you’re ashamed of 
yourselves, that ’s all. Why, what harm do you suppose Lord Rye 
can do you? What good do you suppose he’s going to do you? 
Precious little— you may take my word for that! Now, you needn’t 
think I’m disappointed. I mean to represent you before very long 
— not because it’s any honor to represent such a pack of blockheads, 
but because 1 said I would. My compliments to the honest fellows 
who promised to vote tor me, and then broke their promise. That’s 
all I’ve got to say to you for the present. Good-night.” 

Mr. Hobday then retired, pursued by sounds which the local news- 
paper afterward described as ironical cheering. He was more de- 
spondent than he was willing to allow, and as he drove home he 
wished he had never said that he meant to be Member for Still- 
bourne. Having said so, he was of course bound to persevere; but 
it did seem rather absurd that he should be put to so much trouble 
in order to be returned for a petty borough which would certainly 
be done away with when the next redistribution of seats took place, 
while there were plenty of important constituencies which would 
doubtless elect him gladly. 

“ These intelligent beggars won’t have anything to say to me, you 
see,” he remarked, with a rather sour smile, to Staveley, whom he 
met a few days after the event. 

“ Tu l 1 as voulu , Georges Dandin /” answered the other placidly. 

“Same to you, and many of ’em!” returned Mr. Hobday. 
“ You must speak your own language if you want me to under- 
stand you. I suppose you are in high glee over my failure.” 

“ As a Conservative, I naturally rejoice that my side has been vic- 
torious,” replied Staveley; “but 1 feel that our triumph will be 
short. You are not a man whose name can be associated with fail- 
ure, Mr. Hobday. You are like A^tseus, who gathered fresh 
strength from Mother Earth every time that he was overthrown. 
Soon you will be very strong— if you go on as you have been doing 
lately, for 1 think Lord Rye gave you a rather nasty fall the other 


68 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


day. My dear sir, what made you imagine that you could bribe a 
man like that?” 

“ 1 didn’t bribe him,” said Mr. Hobday sullenly. “ 1 made him 
a devilish handsome offer, and 1 shouldn’t have thought he’d be 
such an ass as to go talking about it. However, now that you 
know, you can judge for yourself whether I haven’t got his lordship 
under my thumb, and whether 1 ain’t as likely to prove as strong as 
old Antics, or whatever his name was. Those Dennes are in my 
power, and they shall feel it when I choose.” 

That was his consolation. He had the power. He did not care 
1o use it just at once; but it pleased him to think that lie could do so, 
and that the enemy knew that he could. This attitude of menacing 
quiescence he maintained during several weeks, while Stillbourne — 
the bustle of the election being over— sunk back into its accustomed 
stagnation. Lord Rye had gone away, nominally to recruit his 
health at the seaside, but in reality to practice that economy which 
he had such difficulty in reconciling with the dignity of his station. 
Egbert also had left for London, intending to lay the foundation- 
stone of a permanent artistic renown. The inmates of Sheldon 
Park found life very tedious at this time, and if it had not been for 
Staveley, who sometimes walked over to discuss the topics of the 
day with him, and Mr. Sampson, whom he bullied from morning to 
night, Mr. Hobday would have been brought to the verge of melan- 
choly madness. And after all, to one of his temperament there was 
little pleasure to be derived from conversation with a friend \^ho did 
not think it worth while to, and a subordinate who dared not, con- 
tradict him. He almost jumped with joy when one afternoon a card 
was brought to him bearing the name of Yiscount Grinstead, and it 
was with an exhilarating sense of coming strife that he hurried into 
the drawing-room to meet his visitor. 

He saw a good-humored but rather dissipated-looKing young 
man, who wore clothes of a sporting cut, and who, like his father, 
possessed a fine Roman nose. It presently appeared, however, that 
there were no other points of resemblance between him and Lord 
Rye. Nothing, indeed, could have been in stronger contrast to the 
morgue of that old-fashioned nobleman than the easy and familiar 
address of his heir-apparent. 

“ V/ell, Mr. Hobday,” Lord Grinstead said, after offering some 
preliminary observations about the weather and the hunting pros- 
pects, which were rather gruffly responded to, ”1 thought the best 
thing I could do was to look you up, as 1 have a day or two to spare 
just now. They tell me you hold a lot of my paper.” 

“ Pretty well all of it, 1 believe,” answered Mr. Hobday, contem- 
plating his victim with grim complacency. “ At least, it comes to a 
trifle over £20,000.” 

“ Ah, you’re speaking of the nominal value, of course. So you 
bought it all up? — what a funny thing to do! What could have 
tempted you to go in for such a doubtful spec. ?” 

“Never you mind, young man, ” answered Mr. Hobday, recog- 
nizing at once that he was in the presence of a far more tractable rep- 
resentative of insolvency than Lord Rye. “ 1 had my reasons; 
you may take your oath of that.” 

“Oh, 1 suppose so; I was only wondering what on earth they 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


69 


could be. 1 hear that you actually offered to hand over the whole 
of my acceptances, upon condition that they let you gel in lor Still- 
bourne.” 

“ That is so,” replied Mr. Hobday, who was now a little ashamed 
of the transaction which he had suggested, but who would have 
died rather than confess as much. “I made that offer; and an un- 
common liberal offer it was, 1 think.” 

” So do I,” agreed Lord Grinstead cordially. “ Only wish I had 
had the chance of accepting it. I really believe the old man would 
have accepted it, if you had taken him the right way. With your 
knowledge of the world, Mr. Hobday, you must be aware that many 
people require to be let down easy. ” 

”1 don’t, as a rule, trouble myself much about that kind of 
thing,” said Mr. Hobday, dryly. 

“ Ah, but you should, you know. You would find life so much 
pleasanter if you would consent to study people’s peculiarities and 
smooth them down properly. 1 always go upon that system myself, 
and I can assure you that, when once you get into the way of it, it 
is not a bit more trouble to be civil than to be rude.” 

‘‘Oh, indeed!” said Mr. Hobday. “Maybe you’re right; but 
I’m a plain man myself, and I like to put things in a plain way. I 
suppose you didn’t come here to give me a lesson in manners, did 
you? Perhaps you came to pay me.” 

” What — twenty thousand pounds? Hardly. No, my dear Mr. 
Hobday, you can’t get blood out of a stone, and I am sorry to say 
that my luck has not been as good of late as I should have liked it 
to be. Still, 1 have picked up a few crumbs, and what 1 wished to 
do was to try and arrange matters as comfortably as is possible in 
the interest of all parties. In point of fact, I am in hopes of per- 
suading you to renew.” 

”1 am not a money-lender,” answered Mr. Hobday uncompro- 
misingly. 

” Of course not. I quite understand what you mean, and 1 am 
sure you would never think of exacting the outrageous terms that 
these harpies insist upon. It is much more agreeable to me to owe 
money to a — a ” — Lord Grinstead was going to say ” a gentleman,” 
but the word somehow stucK in his throat, and he substituted ” an 
honest and upright man, like yourself, than to some rascally old 
Jew. Now, what should you say to five per cent. ? It’s a deuce of 
a lot of money, but I think 1 can manage to raise it, and pay you 
back half yearly if 1 have anything like decent luck.” 

Mr. Hobday jingled the half-crowns which he always kept for 
that purpose in his trousers’ pockets, and laughed. ” I shouldn’t 
consider that a very profitable investment, Lord Grinstead,” he 
said. ” Sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t come to terms. Fifty 
per cent, wouldn’t tempt me.” 

” That seems a pity,” observed Lord Grinstead. ” No doubt you 
are the best judge of your own course of action; but what it is to 
be is a mystery to me, 1 confess. 1 have a few horses in training — 
not one of them worth his keep— and there are some odds and ends 
in my rooms in town: you will hardly see your money back out of 
that. Besides, I am afraid you will not find yourself quite the sole 
creditor.” 


70 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


‘ 4 It would be the same tiling to me if there were a hundred thou- 
sand creditors,” said Mr. Hobday. 

4 4 Well, there are not quite so many as that; but supposing that 
you were the only one, you would still be a heavy loser it you sold 
me up. 1 don’t understand what you are driving at. You think, 
perhaps, that my father would pay my debts rather than have a pub* 
lie scandal, and that he is the kind 'of man to do it, even if it cost 
him his last farthing. 1 agree with you; he is all that. But, un- 
fortunately, it is doubtful whether he could by any possibility pay. 
Between ourselves, he is pretty liaid up.” 

44 1 am aware of it,” replied Mr. Hobday 

44 Oh, you are? I fancied you must be. Then 1 presume you 
wish to make some — some—” 

44 Bargain,” said Mr. Hobday. 44 Don’t be afraid of calling things 
by their names.” 

44 And what is this bargain, if 1 may ask?” 

“Ah, that’s another thing,” answered Mr. Hobday, who was 
now enjoying himself very much. 44 1 didn’t say 1 had any special 
proposal to make. Indeed, I think the first proposal ought to come 
from you. Come, let’s hear your side of the case. What are you 
prepared to offer me in exchange for twenty thousand pounds’ worth 
of your promises to pay?” 

Lord Grinstead smiled amiably. 44 Well,” he said, 44 I’ve been 
thinking about it , and 1 am ready to offer you the only possession of 
any value that remains to me — myself. I have heard all about your 
charming daughter and my brother Egbert, Mr. Hobday, and 1 quite 
understand your conduct with regard to that affair. Good fellow, 
Egbert; — but not good enough. Only a younger son, and no pros- 
pects whatever. 1 think you were perfectly right in refusing him. 
But 1 need hardly point out to you that my position is very different 
from his. 1 can make your daughter a viscountess at once and a 
countess eventually; lean take her into the best society, and all that 
sort of thing; and, though I am rather short of cash just now, I 
shall have large estates one of these days. Therefore, I think 1 may 
say without vanity that 1 am well worth the price at which 1 put 
myself up.” 

44 Oh,” said Mr. Hobday, “ that’s your offer, eh? You’ll consent 
to take up my daughter and her fortune without having so much as 
seen her?” 

Lord Grinstead nodded. 44 My not having been fortunate enough 
to see the young lady is a matter of no consequence,” he answered. 
44 1 don’t want to marry at all. For many reasons, with which 1 
need not trouble you, marriage will be a horrid bore to me ; but 1 
would just as soon marry Miss Hobday as anybody else. Needs 
must, you know, when the devil drives.” 

44 Lord Grinstead,” said Mr. Hobday, 44 the devil may drive you 
to his home if he likes; but he won’t drive you into mine. There 
are several ways in which you can leave this room. You can walk 
out of the door, you can be chucked out of the window, or you can 
climb up the chimney. Take your choice. Only don’t be too long 
about it; because I’m a powerful man for my years, and you don’t 
look as if you could show much fight.” 

Thus a second member of the Denne family was ignominiously 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


71 

ejected from Sheldon Park, whose owner must now have felt that 
he had sufficiently asserted his independence. Yet it was in no tri- 
umphant mood that Mr. Hobday set out, shortly afterward, to call 
on his friend Staveley and to report what had occurred. The calm 
impudence of Lord Grinstead did not make him as indignant as he 
wished to be. He tried to work himself up into a rage, and tailed. 
After all, he had no right to resent an insult— it it ought to be consid- 
ered as such— which he had brought upon himself, and which had 
been only the response to his own invitation. The sense of having 
the Dennes in his power was beginning to lose its charm for him. 
He did not really wish to ruin them, and indeed had no definite in- 
tention with regard to them at all. Perhaps it was in some measure 
to supply this want that he decided to pa} r a visit to his neighbor. 
Staveley might possibly help him by suggesting some line of con- 
duct, and thus providing him with a reason for adopting its opposite. 

“You see,” he explained, when he had been admitted into the 
comfortable library at the Grange, and had made his state of mind 
much clearer to his host than he imagined— “ you see, 1 haven’t any 
particular grudge against these people. I don’t know that 1 want 
to do ’em an injury— rather the other way, if anything. Hut what 
am 1 to do? 1 hold these acceptances — ” 

“ Which nothing in the world compelled you to purchase,” ob- 
served Staveley parenthetically. 

“ Eh?— no; I wasn’t obliged to buy them certainly, but I had my 
reasons. When 1 first came down here 1 had some little rubs with 
Lord Rye's agent, and 1 saw that tliere’d be no peace and comfort 
for me if I allowed his lordship to ride over me roughshod. So 1 
got those papers into my hands. I haven’t made any use of ’em 
though. I said to myself, ‘ 1 owe this Denne family a good turn, 
and I’ll pay my debt; but I’m a man of business, and 1 don’t see 
that I’m to'hand ’em over £20,000. My debt ain’t quite up to that 
figure.’ Well; you know what 1 did. I went to Lord Rye and 
made overtures to him, which he chose to throw back in my teeth. 

‘ Do your worst,’ says he. Lord Rye’s an old fool, and if 1 took him 
at his word, he’d be rightly served. But then, don’t you see—” 
Here Mr. Hobday paused, and rubbed his large red ear violently. 

“ 1 think I understand,” said Staveley. “You are not disposed 
to show much generosity to the Dennes — ” 

“ Why the dickens should 1?” interpolated Mr. Hobday. 

“ 1 know of no reason why you should. But, although you don’t 
want to be generous, you would like to be just, and to discharge 
what you consider to be a debt; and you can’t see any other way of 
doing that than to tear up Lord Grinstead’s acceptances. Only, as 
£20,000 is more than they have any right to expect of you, you think 
you ought to exact some sort of equivalent for the balance.” 

Mr. Hobday nodded. “ That’s about it. Now, what should you 
do in my place?” 

“ It is so difficult to say what one would do in a position which 
one would never have created for one’s self. There is a way out of 
the dilemma which would at once suggest itself to me; but then my 
ways are not your ways, and I doubt whether it’s worth mention- 
ing. However, since you ask me, 1 may say that what I should do 
would be to try and get Lord Rye’s consent to a marriage between 


72 


A MAN or HIS WORD. 


Egbert Denne and my daughter. If I couldn’t get it — and most 
likely 1 shouldn’t — I should do without it, and let Uie young people 
marry, giving them those troublesome bits of paper as a wedding 
present. I should then feel that 1 had done my duty both to my 
daughter and to her husband's family, and I should have a very 
good hope of an amicable termination of the whole business; for, 
although Lord Rye may be prejudiced, he is kind-hearted, and 1 
feel sure that Miss Josephine would very soon make a conquest, of 
him.” 

“ That’s a first-rate notion, I must say!” exclaimed Mr. Hobday. 
“ I'm to begin by eating my -words, and marrying my daughter 'to 
a man whom I said she shouldn’t marry; then I’m to pay a small 
fortune for the privilege; and finally I’m to go to Lord Rye and beg 
him to forgive me. And perhaps he will forgive me, because he’s 
so kind-hearted! Really, Mr. -Staveley, I should have thought you 
might have known me better than to offer me such advice as that!” 

“ I was not offering you advice, you know,” answered Staveley 
imperturbably. “You asked me what I should do in your place, 
and I told you.” 

“Now look here,” continued Mr. Hobday, who was too angry to 
notice this disclaimer; “ when I say a thing 1 mean it; and I’ve said 
over anil over again that my daughter sha’n’t marry Egbert Denne. 
If the whole lot of ’em came and begged me on their bended knees 
to consent, 1 wouldn’t.” 

“ I think I can promise you that they won’t do that,” observed 
Staveley, smiling. “ Let us try to hit upon some other plan.” 

But Mr. Hobday was thoroughly out of temper, and declined to 
discuss the subject further. With a gruff “ Good-night to you,” 
he cut his visit short, and left, muttering objurgations to himself as 
he groped his way down the dark carriage-drive. 

The carriage-drive was very dark, for it was now past sunset, 
and the twilight had deepened into night by the time that Mr. Hob- 
day emerged upon the open country. He made for liis own house 
by a series of short cuts which were known to him; but having at 
the best of times a poor instinct for locality, and being just now be 
wildered by the darkness, he soon lost his bearings, and found him- 
self struggling in a plowed field from which no means of exit were 
discoverable. After searching in vain for a gate, he determined tc* 
climb over llie fence and hedge which barred his progress, and set 
about this operation with the stiff movements natural to a man of 
his age. He had no great difficulty in reaching the summit of the 
fence; but, having done this, he perceived that he could only get to 
the other side of the hedge beyond by jumping. Now the one thing 
essential to the success of a leap in the dark is that it should be 
taken with boldness, and perhaps it was due to some access of timid- 
ity at the last moment that Mr. Hobday, instead of landing safely 
upon firm ground, caught his heel on the topmost rail, and plunged 
headlong into unknown depths. 

Then, upon the silence of the night there arose a howl and a 
splash, followed by curses both loud and deep. But the unheeding- 
wind bore these away, and it w r as not until nearly two hours after- 
ward that a belated laborer, blundering homeward from the public- 
house, was startled by the sound of moans and imprecations, pro- 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


73 


ceeding apparently from the bowels of the earth, as from some 
invisible Tophet. Investigation resulted in the discovery at the bot- 
tom of a ditch of Mr. Hobday, who said he had broken his leg and 
dislocated his shoulder, and who further promised a reward of 
twenty pounds to any person or persons who should carry him safely 
home. This offer was at once closed with by the delighted rustic, 
who summoned others to his assistance, and, having transported Mr. 
Hobday to Sheldon Park on a hurdle, received a sum of money 
larger than he had ever held in his hands before. 

Josephine was greatly distressed at the sight of her father in such 
a plight ; but her anxiety was relieved when the doctor, who had 
been summoned in all haste, pronounced his patient’s injuries to be 
confined to a sprained ankle and various abrasions. Mr. Hobday, 
w T ho was lather disappointed at finding himself less seriously hurt 
than he had supposed, told the doctor that he was a confounded chat- 
tering nincompoop — which seemed to show a reassuring presence of 
vitality. Josephine therefore returned pious thanks to Heaven for 
preservation from evil; and it certainly never occurred to her to 
think what an agreeable change might have been wrought in her 
own destiny if Mr. Hobday, instead of only spraining his ankle, 
had broken his neck. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Although Mr. Hobday was denied the solace of a broken limb, 
the effects of his accident were destined to cause his daughter more 
disquietude than had at first seemed probable. A sexagenarian can- 
not lie for two hours in a wet ditch on a chilly night with im- 
punity. Indeed, it may be said that such a course of treatment 
would prove fatal to most sexagenarians; and if it did not make an 
end of Mr. Hobday this was only due to his possession of an excep- 
tionally tough constitution. What it did for him was to lay him on 
his back with a sharp attack of illness, which the doctor called a 
feverish cold, but looked rather grave over. There came a period 
of several successive days during which the patient was constantly 
delirious, and when his life was undoubtedly in some danger — a 
period spent by Josephine almost without intermission in the sick 
room, where her dexterity and presence of mind won her golden 
opinions from the doctor. She had had no experience whatever of 
illness; but she happened to be one of those women to whom the 
art of nursing comes as naturally as that of flirtation does to others. 

From this crisis Mr. Hobday emerged feeble and a good deal be- 
wildered. Never from the half-forgotten days of his childish ail- 
ments until then, had he spent a day in bed, and as he lay there, his 
eyes wandering restlessly about the ceiling and the walls, he had 
some difficulty in understandng what it all meant. He tried to 
rise, and found that he couldn’t. The sensation was a strange one; 
it shook his belief in himself, which had always extended to his 
physical as well as his mental qualities, and it affected him with a 
sensation of humility and helplessness which he could not get over. 
Perhaps he was not going to die — both the doctor and Josephine 
had assured him that he was not — but certainly he must be growing 
old. Death could not be very far distant now, and might be close 


74 


A MAX OF HIS WORD. 


at hand. He thought with a sigh of his long life of labor. He had 
heaped up riches, and now how could he tell, who would gather 
them? Not Egbert Den ne, at all events; he was quite determined 
of that. He thought he would say a word or two to his daughter 
upon the subject; so that, in case of anything happening suddenly, 
she might remember what his last wishes had been. But, after ail! 
he omitted to take his precaution. He did not wish to vex Joseph- 
ine, who had been so good, so patient, so quick to give him all that 
he had asked tor during his illness, and to lind out what he wanted 
without being asked. He stretched out his hand to feel for hers, as 
she sat by the bedside, and, having found it, gave it a squeeze, not 
being very ready with affectionate words. 

It was the rector of the parish who innocently put an end to this 
softened mood of Mr. Hobday’s. The rector was, as a matter of 
course, a Denne — no rector of Stillbourne had ever been anything 
else within living memory. The present Honorable and Reverend 
Ethelred had the handsome features and pleasant mauners of his 
family, and was known and liked throughout the length and 
breadth of the county. His relations with his subversive parish- 
ioner had hitherto been of a formal ana not over-friendly character; 
but in a case of serious illness he felt that he ought not to shrink 
from discharging the duties imposed upon him by his office. Ac- 
cordingly, he walked up to Sheldon Park one afternoon, with a pile 
of little books under his arm, and was shown into the bedroom of 
the sufferer. Mr. Hobday made things pleasant for his visitor by 
saying at once that he couldn’t abide paisons, and on being good- 
humoredly asked liis reasons for thus condemning a whole class, re- 
plied that parsons never came to him unless they wanted money. 

‘‘ Unfortunately, we often do want money,” said Mr. Denne; “ but 
it is not for ourselves that we ask for it.” 

“ I’m not so sure of that,” remarked Mr. Hobday. 

“ At any rate,” said Mr. Denne, smiling, “ 1 have not come here 
to beg to-day.’ ’ And then, after such preliminary observations as 
the case appeared to call for, he opened his books and read a few pas- 
sages to Mr. Hobday, who only interrupted him once to inquire 
quite irrelevantly: ‘‘What relation are you to our new M.P. ?” 

“ His uncle,” replied Mr. Denne, who knew the whole story of 
Egbert’s love-affair, and who thought he saw his way to effecting 
what he considered a highly desirable reconciliation. Therefore he 
added: “ Egbert has been very sincerely grieved to hear of your ill- 
ness, Mr. Hobday. 1 don’t think a day has passed without his mak- 
ing inquiries as to how you w r ere getting on.” 

“Oh, indeed?” returned Mr. Hobday. “You can go on reading 
now, if } r ou like.” 

The rector complied with this request, and it was not until he had 
risen to take his leave that the sick man asked abruptly: “ Will you 
oblige me by delivering a message to your nephew?” 

“ With the greatest pleasure,” answered Mr. Denne. 

“ Well, then, say to him from me, ‘ Don’t you wish you may get 
it?’ That’s all. Just you ask him, Don’t he wish he may get it?” 
Mr. Hobday sunk back upon his pillow, chuckling softly; and then, 
as his visitor looked puzzled, he added explanatorily : “ Your nephew 
is very kind to be so anxious about me, and J don’t doubt that he’d 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


75 


be pleased to attend my funeral, and show every respect for my mem- 
ory; but you see, I couldn’t think of giving him so much trouble. 
There’ll be no funeral from this house j r et awhile, my dear sir.” 

He went on chuckling to himself for some minutes after Mr. 
Denne had departed. These parsons!— -didn’t he know them? Al- 
ways up to some game or other! If they couldn’t do you out of your 
money by asking for it point-blank, they would be sure to have re- 
course to" stratagem, and it was easy to understand that both the rec- 
tor of the parish and that precious nephew of his would like very 
much to have the spending of a large fortune. From that day forth 
the conviction that Egbert Denne was a mere fortune-hunter took 
possession of: Mr. Hobday’s mind. He generally succeeded in be- 
lieving anything that he wanted to believe, and just now he was very 
anxious to think badly of the Member for Stillbourne. Remember- 
ing what Mr. Denne had said about his nephew’s assiduous inquiries, 
he took occasion to ask Josephine suddenly whether Egbert was in 
the neighborhood, and the vivid blush which accompanied her affir- 
mative reply justified the inference which Mr. Hobday immediately 
drew. 

” Ah,” said he, “ j'ou’ve been seeing him again.” 

“ Only once or twice, papa,” answered Josephine deprecatingly; 
“ and only for a very few minutes each time. It was when you were 
so ill — and they told me he was at the door — and he wanted very 
much to see me. 1 thought it could do no harm just to speak a few 
words to him.” 

“ Ah, well!” sighed Mr. Hobday, and turned his head away. 

She thought he was yielding; but in truth he had no such inten- 
tion. All that he felt was regret that the poor girl should have set 
her heart upon something that she could not have, and indignation 
against the disturber of her peace. He had really grown fond of his 
daughter by this time; he would gladly have spared her pain; he said 
to himself that he would let her marry the man, if the man were not 
so utterly unworthy of her. Had Mr. Hobday been able to accom- 
plish the feat, which none of us everdo accomplish, of reading the 
secret workings of his own heart, he would no doubt have discovered 
that his reasons for objecting to this marriage began and ended with 
the fact that he had forbidden it; but as he was even less given to 
self-examination than the common run of mortals, it did not strike 
him for a moment that he was an obstinate old blockhead, and he 
made haste to set well, in order that he might take fresh measures 
to secure Josephine from future unhappiness. 

Very likely strength of will may have helped to accelerate his re- 
covery; at all events, when once he was round the corner, he began 
to mend rapidly, and was soon able to go out for a short drive every 
day. After testing his strength in this manner for about a week, he 
ordered the carriage one afternoon, and announcing in his curt, per- 
emptory way that he would dispense with his daughter’s company, 
had himself driven to the cottage in Rye Park, where Egbert had 
once more taken up his residence. 

Mr. Hobday had only once before set foot on Lord Rye’s territory, 
and this was his first introduction to the prettiest and most comfort- 
able little dwelling that a bachelor of retired tastes could wish for. 
Although the season was so far advanced, there were still a few 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


76 

flowers in tlie small garden, which was admirably kept; trees and a 
slope of rising ground surrounded the house on three sides, protect- 
ing its inmate from cold winds; but southward its windows looked 
upon a long, grassy shooting-drive, at the end of which could be dis- 
cerned Stillbourne church-tower and a range of blue hills in the far 
distance. There was no entrance-hall, the front door opening upon 
a room to which it would be difficult to assign any specific name. 
It was a very pretty and cozy room, as even Mr. Hobday, who cared 
little for upholstery or decoration, was obliged to admit. Half a 
dozen paintings by old masters, a few brackets adorned with choice 
specimens of Japanese porcelain and enamel, a quaint brass lamp, 
hanging by one of those wrought-iron chains 'which are to be picked 
up in Venice, and nowhere else — these, and other similar treasures 
failed to impress the new-comer, who only saw in them fresh evi- 
dences of the effeminate frivolity of their owner; but he mentally ap- 
praised the value of the Turkey carpet on which he stood, as, with 
his coat-tails gathered up under his arms, he stationed himself in 
front of the fire, he noticed that the luxurious arm-chairs w T ere all of 
the latest designs; and he said to himself: “Either this fellow is 
making a pot of money by his pictures — which ain’t likely— or else 
he is going the same road as his father and brother. I expect I can 
buy him.” 

Just as he reached this comforting conclusion a curtain was 
pushed aside, and Egbert, holding a palette and a sheaf of brushes 
in his left hand, and extending his right with a cordial smile, ad- 
vanced, saying, “ 1 am very glad to see you out again, Mr. Hobday. 
The doctor tells me you have had a sharp bout of it, but it doesn't 
seem to have done you any harm, fortunately.” 

Mr. Hobday did not, this time, refuse to accept the hand of his 
late opponent. He growled out a few words of acknowledgment, 
and then stood staring at the young artist, a little disconcerted by 
the matter-of-course way in which he was being received How 
could he tell that perfidious Staveley had not only warned Egbert of 
the impending visit, but had given him full instructions as to the 
tone which it would be advisable to adopt when that visit should 
take place? 

“ Won’t you sit down?” Egbert said. “ 1 vrould ask you to 
come into my studio ; but 1 know you are not a great lover of the 
arts.” 

Mr. Hobday took no notice of this speech. He stuck his hands 
in his pockets and, after frowning at the hearth-rug for a few min- 
utes, proceeded straight to business. “ See here, Denne; Hold you, 
that day down at Stillbourne, that we weren’t friends, and I meant 
it. We’ve had our differences, you and 1 — ” 

“ Not of my seeking, Mr. Hobday,” interrupted Egbert, suavely, 

“ Just allow me to finish, will you? I say, we’ve had our differ- 
ences, and I take it there’s not much love lost between us. If 1 
could have had my choice, I’d rather have had nothing more to say 
to you, but a man can’t always take his choice. Now I’m going to 
be quite straightforward with you, and I’ll admit that it’s in your 
power to give me a lot of bother. That girl of mine has taken a 
fancy to you. You know that; so there’s no harm in my saying as 
much. She’s a good girl, and I can trust her; but all the same, 1 


A MAX OF HIS WORD. 


77 


don’t want you hanging about here and keeping her from forgetting 
you. The question is, what will you take to clear right out of this 
— go away to Jerusalem or Jericho or somewhere— and not show 
yourself in these parts for a couple of years at least? Your constit- 
uents won’t miss you, 1 dare say. Don’t be afraid of putting it too 
high. If it offends your fine feelings to take a check and have done 
with it, I’m game to buy three or four of those pictures of yours and 
give you your own price for ’em. Now then!” 

“ You are too generous, Mr. Hobday,” answered Egbert, smiling. 
“ Under different circumstances, 1 should have been quite willing to 
go to Jericho and back, on consideration of my expenses being paid; 
but as it is, 1 feel that I could not accept anything from you — not 
even a commission. In fact, your reason for wishing to get me out 
of the neighborhood no longer exists. You may remember that, 
when we last talked about this matter, 1 told you that 1 meant to 
marry your daughter as soon as she came of age.” 

“ 1 do remember that you had the impudence to make some such 
threat,” said Mr. Hobday angrily. 

“ Yes; but I withdraw it now. I withdraw all claims upon Miss 
Hobday’s hand.” 

” You're a cool customei, I must say!” Mr. Hobday ejaculated. 
“ * Claims,’ indeed!” 

“ Well, 1 don’t exactly know what other word to use. What 1 
mean is that the opposition brought to bear upon me has been too 
strong, and that I now decline to marry your daughter.” 

“ Decline!” called out Mr. Hobday, getting very red in the face — 
“ you decline to marry my daughter? And who the devil, sir, ever 
asked you to marry her?” 

“ Oh, nobody, of course. 1 only wish it to be distinctly under- 
stood that I refuse to do so.” 

If it was Egbert’s design to exasperate his visitor, he succeeded to 
perfection. Mr. Hobday could hardly speak for rage. “It’s all 
very fine for you to talk about declining and refusing; but, dash it 
all, you can't decline! When a man is turned out of his club he 
can’t send in his resignation. When an officer is cashiered, he can’t 
resign his commission. You’ve been rejected, sir; that’s what has 
happened to you.” 

” In a certain sense, that is true,” returned Egbert calmly; “ but 
1 was not thinking of your opposition, which was grounded upon 
nothing, and might fairly have been resisted. The opposition of my 
own people was quite another thing. You, who insist so much upon 
filial obedience, will easily understand how 1 am situated. What 
can I say when my father not only forbids me to marry Miss Hob- 
day, but gives, what 1 must admit is a very plausible reason for his 
prohibition? You and 1 may not think much of differences of rank 
but there is no shutting our eyes to the fact that they exist.” 

” Say no more, sirf” cried Mr. Hobday, clutching his hat and 
making for the door— “ say no more! 1 see I was quite wrong in 
wishing to get you out of my daughter’s neighborhood. If 1 wanted 
to cure her of any girlish affection that she may have formed for 
you, 1 don’t see that 1 could do better than encourage you to come 
as often as possible to my house.” 

This was a system which would have suited Egbert very well, 


78 


A MAX OF HIS WORD. 


and he was half inclined to say so; but neither time nor opportunity 
for making a rejoinder was granted to him. As foi Mr. Hobday, 
he was driven away, boilfug over with indignation. When he 
reached home, and found Staveley sitting over the fire with Joseph- 
ine, he could not restrain himself until the former should have 
taken his leave, but blurted out the news of Egbert’s defection im- 
mediately : 

“So much for your honorable aristocrats ! I’ve just been with 
young Denne, and he tells me that, now he comes to think of it, l^e 
finds we’re not Hearty good enough for him. At one time he was 
inclined to condescend so far as to take a wife of the name of Hob- 
day, even though her father had as good as kicked him down-stairs; 
but now, if you please, he discovers that his duty to his family 
would never allow him to stoop so low. Oh, dear no! couldn’t hear 
of such a thing at any price! 4 1 refuse to marry your daughter,’ 
says he. Ha, ha, ha! % 1 think that’s about as good a joke as ever 1 
heard in my life. Well, Staveley, you don’t seem to be amused. 
1 should have thought this would make you laugh.’’ 

Mr. Hobday addressed himself somewhat savagely to his friend, 
and, in truth, his own laughter Was not of a very hilarious kind. 

“ Oh, no,’’ answered Staveley quietly; “ 1 was quite prepared for 
it. I told you all along, you know, how it would be.’’ 

Mr. Hobday grunted and turned away. Atler all, it signified very 
little what impression might or might not have been produced upon 
Staveley. Josephine was standing with her elbow resting upon the 
mantelpiece, and her face averted. He drew nearer to her, and said, 
with more gentleness: “ Now, you see how it is. 1 wasn’t so very 
far wrong when I told you that that fellow was worth nothing, was 
1?.’’ And then, as she neither changed her position nor spoke, he 
went on: “ After this, you will give up thinking about him, I 
should hope.’’ 

“ 1 can’t do that, papa,’’ answered Josephine, in a low voice. 

“ Why, my dear girl, what are you made of? Haven’t you any 
pride? Don’t you understand that he said he wouldn’t have you? 
It was pretty cool impudence on his part, considering that you hadn’t 
been offered to him, and wereu’t likely to be; but that’s what he 
said.” 

Josephine was quiet for a moment, and then: “ Perhaps he didn’t 
mean it,” she murmured. 

“ Didn’t mean it? Then lliere’s no meaning in words, that’s all.” 

But Josephine, who seemed very unwilling to be drawn into any 
discussion upon the subject, had already escaped from the room. 
Mr. Hobday, with a profound sigh, dropped into the chair which 
she had lately vacated, and sat staring at the glowing coals, while 
Staveley watched him from the other side of the fireplace. The 
silence which supervened was broken at last by the older man, w T ho 
said roughly, “ Well, what have you got to say? You’re ready with 
some advice, as usual, 1 suppose.” 

“My advice is generally so unpalatable, ” 'observed Staveley. 
“ Besides, 1 don’t quite know about what you want to be advised.” 

“ Yes, you do,” returned Mr. Hobday, shortly. 

Staveley laughed. “ 1 can form a guess, perhaps. My notion is 
that you have found out what your daughter is worth. You think 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


79 

she deserves some reward for having nuised you so well through 
your illness, and you would like, if you could, to make her happy.’' 

Mr. Hobday signified assent. 

“ Hadn’t you better give her what she wants, then?” 

“ Hang it all, man!” broke out Mr. Hobday, “ how the devil am 
1 to give her what she wants when the fellow himself draws back? 
Not that 1 would give it her any way. I’ve told you times out of 
number that I’m a man of my word, and if I had meant to accept 
Denne for my son-in-law 1 should have done it four or five months 
ago. I’m sick of these Dennes; 1 want to have done with them 
once and for all. Between you and me, I sha’n’t ask them for a 
penny of that £20,000; but if 1 could bring them down on their 
knees before I tear up the papers, it’d be a sort of relief to me. 
They’ve treated me uncommonly bad between ’em. You’ll allow 
that, I hope.” 

” I don’t wonder at your thinking so,” Staveley replied. “ You 
are quite determined, then, that this marriage shall never take place?” 

‘‘Yes, yes, yes. Don’t make me say that again!” 

‘‘ And, at the same time,” continued Staveley, stroking his beard 
meditatively, ‘‘you would like to convince Miss Hobday that you 
are really anxious to promote her happiness. H’m! it might be 
worked, 1 think. Lord Rye will be coming down in a few days to 
spend Christmas; how would it be it you were to meet him and Eg- 
bert with an ultimatum? If Egbert will agree to marry Miss Hob- 
day you will at once burn Lord Gi instead ’s acceptances. If not, you 
reserve to yourself the power of practically ruining the whole fam- 
ily.” 

“ What? — offer them a bribe to do the very thing I don’t want 
them to do?” cried Mr. Hobday. “ I don’t think much of that 
plan.” * 

“ But 1 am going upon the assumption that they will refuse the 
bribe. I can answer without any hesitation for Lord Rye, and you 
appear to ne equally sure of Egbert. Even if they accepted, you 
would have carried your point, and, when once they have refused, 
you can burn the papers or not, as you think fit. Either way, you 
will have discharged the obligation vhich you say you feel yourself 
under to the Dennes, and you will be able to tell your daughter 
that you have done all that any one could do to gratify her wishes. 

“ There’s something in that,” said Mr. Hobday. ” She couldn’t 
go on caring for that cold-hearted beggar after he’d thrown her over 
finally. Should you think so?” 

It was evident that, for once, Mr. Hobday was thinking more 
about his daughter than himself, and tnis changed point of view 
was not lost upon his companion. “ It’d give me an opportunity to 
speak my mind pretty plainly, too,” he added, after a pause. “ Yes, 
Staveley, 1 think I’ll do as you say. 


CHAPTER VII. 

In pursuance of a custom which he had taught himself to con- 
sider as a duty, Lord Rye arrived at the court a few days after har- 
vest was over. The entertainments given to numerous friends and 


80 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


neighbors, the dinner to the tenants, and the servants’ ball which in 
more prosperous times had been wont to grace that season, had per- 
force been abandoned of late years, and it no longer gave the owner 
of Rye Court any pleasure to visit his reduced establishment; but 
he had a vague idea that it was the proper thing to be there at this 
time, and he was a man who always liked to do the proper thing. 
Upon the present occasion he also brought down Lord Grinstead, 
whom he had persuaded, not without some difficulty, to accompany 
him. In this, too, he was actuated by a desire to do what was fitting/ 
for he had good reason to believe that this was the last year that h<* 
would ever spend in the halls of his ancestors, and it seemed right 
that his heir should be present, so that they might fall together, like 
Saul and Jonathan. 

Lord Grinstead remarked confidentially to Egbert that he believed 
the governor quite enjoyed the prospect of finishing his territorial 
career in the workhouse; and although this assertion was somewhat 
exaggerated, there was doubtless a grain of truth in it. Lord Rye 
felt that, he was about to become a pauper through no fault of his 
own. It was his predecessor, not he, who had encumbered the es- 
tate; it was not his extravagance, but that of his sons, which had 
involved him in further difficulties. He was able, therefore, to show 
an undaunted face to adverse fortune, and to wrap himself in the 
virtue which had not faltered for a single moment in the presence of 
a £20,000 bribe. He had made inquiries, and had found that it would 
be possible to borrow the money requiied to pay Mr, Hobday; hav- 
ing done which, he proposed to withdraw, not indeed to the work- 
house, but to somS cheap continental retreat, there to end his days 
in honorable poverty, while the property recovered itself for the 
benefit of the author of all this trouble. It had not been given to 
Lord Rye to fall after what is commonly considered an heroic fash- 
ion; but he was conscious that his attitude, at least, did not lack 
heroism. 

It was in this exalted mood that the Machiavellian Staveley, who 
one Saturday rode over to Rye Court, found his old neighbor. 
“Well, Staveley,'’ Lord Rye began, “have you come to condole 
with me or to scold me? 1 find that most people do one or the other 
nowadays.” 

“ I don’t intend to do either,” answered Staveley. “ I came firstly 
for the pleasure of seeing you, and secondly to try and arrange an 
amicable meeting between you and our good friend at Sheldon 
Park.” 

“ The man Hobday, do you mean?” asked Lord Rye, with an air 
of decided disgust. “ He may be your good friend, Staveley, but 
really 1 cannot admit that he is mine. " Why do you wish me to 
meet him? 1 have done so once, and 1 don’t feel disposed to repeat 
the experience.” 

“ Nevertheless, I am going, with your permission, to bring him 
here to-morrow afternoon. 1 don’t expect you to like either the man 
or his manners, but considering that it is in his power to — to — ” 

“To ruin me,” put in Lord Rye. “There is no occasion to 
mince matters, and 1 don’t wish to make any secret of the fact.” 

“ Well, considering that he has that power, 1 think you would do 
w r ell to listen to what he has to say.” 


A MAH OF HIS WORD. 


81 


“ Ah! Another flattering proposition?” said Lord Rye, with con- 
temptuous indifference. ”1 suppose you Know that he calmly re- 
quested me to sell the borough to him. W hat does he ask for now? 
Something equally practical, no doubt.” 

I must let him speak for himself,” answered Staveley; “ but I 
believe 1 may say that he is prepared to go considerable lengths— 
verjr considerable lengths— to bring about a marriage between Eg- 
bert and his daughter, who, by the way, is a remarkably pretty, 
amiable, and ladylike young woman.” 

Lord Rye laughed. “ 1 thought so,” said he; ”1 imagined that 
would be it. He may spare himself the trouble of coming here.” 

‘‘And yet,” remarked Staveley, “it is not such a very uncom- 
mon thing in these days for young men of good family to marry the 
daughters of rich parvenus.” 

“1 am quite aware of that,” replied Lord Rye; “ but 1 happen to 
belong to the old school. If my neighbors choose to ally themselves 
with the mob, I am sorry for it and sorry for them; but I do not 
feel myself in any way called upon to follow their example. Bring 
your Hobday to see me, if you choose — ” 

“ Thank you; 1 will.” 

“Only 1 warn you beforehand that it will be a mere waste of 
time. 1 can’t conceive any possible circumstances under which I 
should consent either to strike a bargain with such a man or to ac- 
cept anything that might seem to bear the faintest resemblance to a 
favor at his hands. Beggars on horseback are not a class of people 
with whom I care to deal. But by all means bring him. I won’t 
say that I shall be glad to see him; but I am glad to oblige an old 
friend — and all the more so as 1 am not likely to have many oppor- 
tunities of obliging my friends in the future.” 

“ Very well; then you may expect us about four o’clock to-mor- 
row afternoon,” said Staveley, cheerfully. And therewith the sub- 
ject was dropped. 

It may be doubted whether the spirit of peace and good-will were 
as universal among the congregation which met in Stillbourne 
church that Sunday morning as it ought to have been. Lord Rye 
and his two sons were in their places, as were Mr. and Miss Hobday; 
and the efforts which each family made to appear unconscious of the 
other caused some amusement to Mr. Staveley, who was watching 
them narrowly from the background. He saw that Egbert and 
Josephine contrived to exchange several stolen glances, and he also 
saw that the latter was at last detected in the act by her father; after 
which she got beiiind her Prayer Book, and raised her eyes no more 
until the conclusion of the service. He had to maneuver a little in 
order to prevent an awkward encounter in the porch, where Lord 
Rye remained some time conversing affably with his neighbors; but 
he managed to hold Mr. Hobday back until the Rye Court party had 
driven away, and then went himself to Sheldon Park, where he had 
been invited to luncheon. 

That repast did not prove a cheerful one. Mr. Sampson had gone 
away for a holiday, and the master of the house, being thus deprived 
of his safety-valve, had nothing to do but to growl at the butler and 
send insulting messages to the cook. During the intervals he em- 
ployed himself in staring gloomily across the table at his daughter, 


82 A MAN OF HIS WORD. 

who, for her part, was obviously nervous and ill at ease. It was a 
relief to everybody when the hour came at which it had been agreed 
that Stavelev and his host were to set out for Rye Court. 

“Now mind,” said the latter, as they walked across the park, “ 1 
leave it to you to state my terms, and 1 want it to be clearly under- 
stood that it’s only out of deference to your wishes that 1 offer those 
terms at all. My intention of burning ‘Lord Grinstead’s acceptances 
as soon as ever 1 get home is a matter betwixt you and me, and it 
ain’t to be hinted at. They’ve deserved a fright, and a fright they 
shall have.” He added, rather pathetically: “ When all’s said and 
done, I sha’n’t be able to give my girl what she wants; but there!— 
she can’t say but what I’ve done the fair thing by her, anyhow.” 

His spirits rose at the prospect of a final brush with the enemy, 
in which he could hardly fail to get the best of it, and it was wilh 
his accustomed air of complacent aggressiveness that he entered the 
library, where Loid Rye, Lord Grinstead, and Egbert were waiting 
to receive him. 

The necessary greetings were not marked by any excess of 
cordiality on either side. When they had been exchanged there was 
a short pause, after which Lord Rye and Mr. Hobday started simul- 
taneously. 

“ At the request of my old friend, Mr. Staveley— ” said the one. 

“ Staveley here has persuaded me—” began the other. 

The mediator referred to hastened to interrupt them both. Noth- 
ing could be more agreeable to him personally, he declared, than the 
token of confidence and regard thus conferred upon him by his two 
nearest neighbors; unless, indeed, it might be the hope of effecting 
a reconciliation between them. He could not but think that, with a 
little concession and forbearance on both sides, an arrangement 
might be made which would conduce to the happiness of all con- 
cerned. He would not enter into any detailed account of the circum- 
stances which had led to their meeting. These were known to them 
all, and were, of course, of a more or less distressing kind, lie 
should allude to them no further than was absolutely necessary in 
order to make himself intelligible. Biiefly stated, the case stood 
thus. A marriage had at onetime been contemplated which to him, 
he would confess, had seemed in every way desirable. For various 
reasons, however, the parents of the young people had thought 
otherwise; and then what had occurred? Why that one of them, 
actuated no doubt by a high ser se of duty, had formally withdraw n 
his pretensions. This course had been deeply resented — and he 
would add very naturally resented — by the young lady’s father, 
whose views had undergone some change of late, and who had felt 
so unexpected a rebuff most painfully. 

Mr. Hobday here ejaculated “ Fiddlededee! — ” but the speaker 
went on, without noticing the interruption. 

“ 1 have povc, on behalf of my friend Mr. Hobday, to lay before 
you an offer upon which 1 shall abstain from making any comment 
of my own. 1 feel sure that you will all agree with me in thinking 
that such an offer speaks for itself. I hold in my hand certain 
papers w r hich Lord Grinstead will recognize, and wdtliout referring 
more particularly to their nature, 1 may say that 1 am authorized to 
burn them in your presence, upon one condition, and one only. 1 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


83 


think you will be surprised, Egbert, when 1 tell you that that con- 
dition is simply that you shall once more come forward as a suitor 
for Miss Hobday’s hand.” 

The only person who appeared to be profoundly moved by the ora- 
tor’s climax was Lord Grinstead. Mr. Hobday seemed somewhat 
dissatisfied, and Egbert’s efforts to look astounded were not crowned 
with complete success. He did not speak, and it was his father 
who replied on behalf of the family. Lord Rye was evidently en- 
joying the situation., A calm smile illumined his features, while he 
slowly rubbed his hands one over the other. Finis Polonim! the 
great family of Denne was about to sink before the rising star of 
Democracy; but it would remain true to itself and to its traditions, 
and even in its fall would give one more striking proof that it pre- 
ferred ruin to dishonor. 

“ 1 have but a few words to say,” he announced blandly. “ Mr. 
Hobday doubtless means well; but he does not quite comprehend — 
nor ought we to expect that he should comprehend — the motives 
which compel us to meet his advances with a — shall I say a non pos- 
sumus? The case is not one which admits of argument. I have 
only to add that any pecuniary claims made either against me or my 
eldest son will be satisfied in full. Of that our creditors may rest 
assured.” 

“ As you please, my lord,” answered Mr. Hobday with alacrity. 
‘'You’ve had your choice, and you’ve chosen. Hope you’ll never 
repent of it. Now, Staveley, if you’ll be so good as hand me back 
those papers, I won’t take up his lordship's valuable time any 
longer.” 

“ One moment!” struck in Egbert, holding up his hand. “ This 
offer, as 1 understand it, was made to me, not to my father, and I 
must claim the right to be heard. If 1 had only had my own in- 
terests to consult, 1 should perhaps not have been justified in accept- 
ing Mr. Hobday’s generous proposal; but for the sake of my family, 
1 feel that 1 ought not to hesitate. I must save them in spite of 
themselves. Mr. Hobday, I consent to marry your daughter.” 

Hardly were the words spoken when the documents of which so 
much had been made were already in the flames, and almost before 
Mr. Hobday had time to realize what had happened, his hand was 
being shaken and he was being warmly felicitated by Staveley. He 
perceived that he had been tricked; but he had the readiness to ac- 
cept the situation created for him, and to make the .best of it. It 
may be that, at the bottom of his heart, he did not altogether dislike 
it. 

“ I am a man of my word,” he observed, “ and when 1 say I’ll 
do a thing, 1 pretty generally manage to carry it through. Young 
man, I congratulate you on your luck and on your common sense. 
As for you, my lord — ” 

“ As for me,” interrupted Lord Rye, in great perturbation, “ you 
will please to understand that this — this unheard-of proceeding is in 
no sense whatever sanctioned by me. The position is unaltered ; the 
debt remains, although the evidences of it have been so rashly de- 
stroyed. 1 withhold my consent unequivocally.” 

“Ah; but you see, you ain’t going to be asked for your consent,” 
returned Mr. Hobday, with a chuckle. “ If you withhold it, I dare 


84 


A MAN OF HIS WORD. 


say we shall make shift to get on without it; but you might as well 
give in and look pleasant, in my opinion. 1 do. assure you, my lord, 
that it’s no sort of use trying to oppose me when once I’ve made up 
my mind to a thing.” 

And in the end Lord Rye did give in ; though it cannot be said 
that he looked exactly pleasant over it. Up to the present day Mr. 
Hobday and he have remained at variance, and a good deal of di- 
plomacy is called into play by their relatives in order to keep them 
as much as possible apart. On the other hand, Josephme has had 
no difficulty in winning the hearts of all tne members of her hus- 
band’s family, that of its chief included. 

The young couple are very popular, very prosperous, and, to all 
appearance, supremely contented. Their tastes agree, and if it were 
not for his parliamentary duties, which he sometimes finds a little 
irksonie, and of which he proposes to free himself at the earliest op- 
portunity, Egbert would not have a single subject of complaint in 
life. 

Whether, at the next general election, Mr. Hobday will again 
come forward as a candidate for the representation of Stillbourne is 
an open question. The subject has been judiciously kept in the 
background; and as, in the meantime, Mr. Hobday has entered 
Parliament as one of the members for a large manfuacturing 
borough, it is possible that in this instance he may silently go back 
from his word. He maintains that he has never done so in any 
other instance, and we may be sure that his daughter and his son- 
in-law are careful not to contradict him. 


THE END. 


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DELDEE, 

The Ward of Waringham. 


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A choice selection of Sketches, Essays, Fashion Items, Personals, Home 
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file Seaside Library, 


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*0 MRS. ALEXANDER’S WORKS. 

30 Her Dearest Foe 20 

36 The Wooing Q’t 20 

46 The Heritage of Langdale > 20 

370 Ralph Wilton’s Weird 10 

400 Which Shall it Be? 20 

632 Maid, Wife, or Widow?. 10 

1231 The Freres 20 

1259 Yalerie’s Fate 10 

1391 Look Before You Leap 20 

1502 The Australian Aunt 10 

1595 The Admiral’s Ward 20 

WILLIAM BLACK’S WORKS. 

18 A Princess of Thule 20 

28 A Daughter of Heth 10 

47 In Silk Attire 10 

48 The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton 10 

51 Kilmeny 10 

63 The Monarch of Mincing Lane. 10 

79 Madcap Violet (small type) 10 

604 Madcap Violet (large type) , 20 

242 The Three Feathers . , 10 

390 The Marriage of Moira Fergus, and The Maid of Killeena. 10 

417 Macleod of Dare 20 

451 Lady Silverdale’s Sweetheart 10 

568 Green Pastures and Piccadilly 10 

816 White Wings: A Yachting Romance 10 

826 Oliver Goldsmith 10 

950 Sunrise: A Story of These Times 20 

1025 The Pupil of Aurelius 10 

1032 That Beautiful Wretch * 10 

1161 The Four MacNicols 10 

1264 Mr. Pisistratus Brown, M.P., in the Highlands 10 

1429 An Adventure in Thule. A Story for Young People 10 

1666 Shandon Bells 20 

mi Yolande &§• 


ft TEE SEASIDE LIBRARY. — Ordinary Edition. 


CHARLES LEYER’S WORKS.-Continued. 

009 Barrington 26 

383 Sir Jasper Carew, Knight 20 

657 The Martins of Cro’ Martin. Part 1 20 

657 The Martins of Cro’ Martin. Part II * 20 

822 Tony Butler. 20 

872 Luttrell of Arran. Part 1 20 

872 Luttrell of Arran. Part II 20 

951 Paul Gosslett’s Confessions 10 

965 One of Them. First half 20 

965 One of Them. Second half ...... 20 

989 Sir Brook Fossbrooke. Part 1 20 

989 Sir Brook Fossbrooke. Part II 20 

1235 The Bramleighs of Bishop’s Folly 20 

1309 The Dodd Family Abroad. First half. * 20 

1309 The Dodd Family Abroad. Second half 20 

1342 Horace Templeton ? 20 

1394 Roland Cashel. First half. 20 

1394 Roland Cashel. Second half 20 

1496 The Daltcns; or. Three Roads in Life. First half 20 

1496 The Daltons; or. Three Roads in Life. Second half 20 


SAMUEL LOYER’S WORKS. 

33 Handy Andy 2b 

66 Rory O’More 20 

123 Irish Legends 10 

158 He Would be a Gentleman . 20 

293 Tom Crosbie 10 


SIR BULWER LYTTON’S WORKS. 

6 The Last Days of Pompeii 20 

587 Zanoni 20 

689 Pilgrims of the Rhine 10 

714 Leila; or. The Siege of Grenada 10 

781 Rienzi, The Last of the Tribunes 20 

955 Eugene Aram 20 

979 Ernest Maltravers 20 

1001 Alice; or, The Mysterios 20 

1064 The Caxtons 20 

1089 My Novel. First half 20 

1089 My Novel Second half 20 

1205 Kenelm Chillingly: His Adventures and Opinions 20 

1316 Pelham; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman 20 

1454 The Last of the Barons. First half * 20 

1454 The Last of the Barons. Second half 20 

1529 A Strange Story 20 

1690 What Will He Do With It? First half. ;» 20 

'W0 What Will He Do With It? Secondhaif. . . ........... < < 2$ 


TEE SEASIDE LIBRARY.— Ordinary Edition. ? $ 


T. B. MACAULAY’S WORKS. 

§26 The Lays of Ancient Rome, and Other Poems 16 

976 History of England. Part I 2^ 

976 History of England. Part II 20 

•976 History of England. Part III. . 20 

976 History of England. Part IV 20 

976 History of England. Part V 20 

976 History of England. Part VI 2<?> 

976 History of England. Part VII. 20 

976 History of England. Part VIII 20 

976 History of England. Part IX t§ 

976 History of England. Part X 

GEORGE MACDONALD’S WORKS. 

455 Paul Faber, Surgeon. 2C 

491 Sir Gibbie 2Q 

595 The Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood 20 

606 The Seaboard Parish 20 

627 Thomas Wingfold, Curate 20 

643 The Vicar’s Daughter 20 

668 David Elginbrod 20 

677 St. George and St. Michael 20 

790 Alec Forbes of Howglen 20 

887 Malcolm 20 

922 Mary Marston 20 

938 Guild Court. A London Story ... .*. 20 

948 The Marquis of Lossie 20 

962 Robert Falconer 20 

1375 Castle Warlock: A Homely Romance 20 

1439 Adela Cathcart 20 

1466 The Gifts of the Child Christ, and Other Tales 10 

1488 The Princess and Curdie. A Girl’s Story 10 

1498 Weighed and Wanting 20 

E. MARLITT’S WORKS. 

453 The Princess of the Moor 20 

522 The Countess Giseia 20 

636 In the Schillingscourt * 20 

866 The Second Wife 20 

878 In the Counselor’s House 20 

1055 The Bailiff’s Maid 20 

1210 Old Mamselle’s Secret 2£ 

CAPTAIN MARRYAT’S WORKS. 

108 The Sea King 

122 The Privateersman H 

141 Masterman Ready 10 

147 Rattlin, the Reefer *•«■.. 10 

150 Mr. Midshipman Easy * 16 

168 The King’s Owa. * 1$ 


am TEE SEASIDE LIBRARY.— Ordinary Edition , , 


CAPTAIN MARRYAT’S WORKS. -Continued. 

159 The Phantom Ship 

163 Frank Mildmay 

170 Newton Forster 

173 Japhet in Search of a Father 

175 The Pacha of Many Tales 

176 Percival Keene 

185 The Little Savage 

192 The Three Cutters 

199 Settlers in Canada « 

207 The Children of the New Forest 

266 Jacob Faithful c . 

273 Snarleyyow, the Dog Fiend 

282 Poor Jack 

340 Peter Simple 

898 The Mission; or, Scenes in Africa 

1070 The Poacher 

1116 Valerie 

FLORENCE MARRYAT’S WORKS. 

110 The Girls of Feversham 

119 Petronei 

197 “ No Intentions ” 

206 The Poison of Asps 

219 “ My Own Child ” 

305 Her Lord and Master 

323 A Lucky Disappointment 

426 Written in Fire 

533 Ange 

635 A Harvest of Wild Oats 

703 The Root of All Evil 

742 A Star and a Heart 

784 Out of His Reckoning 

820 The Fair-Haired Alda 

897 Love’s Conflict 

i038 With Cupid’s Eyes 

1067 A Little Stepson 

1086 My Sister the Actress 

1349 Phyllida. A Life Drama 

1654 Facing the Footlights 

MISS MULOCK'S WORKS. 

2 John Halifax, Gentleman 

456 John Halifax, Gentleman (large type) 

77 Mistress and Maid 

81 Christian’s Mistake 

82 My Mother and I 

88 The Two Marriages 

91 The Woman’s Kingdom 

101 A Noble Life 

*108 A Brave Lady. 


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THE SEASIDE LIBRARY.— Ordinary Edition. xm 


MISS MULOCK’S WORKS.— Continued. 

121 A Life for a Life 30 

130 Sermons Out of Church 10 

135 Agatha’s Husband 20 

142 The Head of the Family 20 

227 Hannah 10 

240 The Laurel Bush 10 

291 Olive 20 

294 The Ogilvies 20 

314 Nothing New ; 10 

320 A Hero 10 

330 A Low Marriage 10 

457 The Last of the Rntliveus. and The Self-Seer 10 

480 Avillion; or, The Happy Isles 10 

626 Young Mrs. Jardine 10 

628 Motherless (Translated by Miss Mulock) 10 

752 The Italian’s Daughter 10 

773 The Two Homes 10 

804 A Bride’s Tragedy 10 

824 A Legacy 20 

850 The Half-Caste 10 

886 Miss Letty’s Experiences . 10 

945 Studies from Life 10 

964 His Little Mother, and Other Tales 10 

978 A Woman’s Thoughts About Women 10 

1029 Twenty Years Ago. A Book for Girls. (Edited by Miss 

Mulock) 10 

1177 An Only Sister, Madame Guizot de Witt. (Edited by Miss 

Mulock) 10 

1261 Plain-Speaking 10 


MRS. OLIPHANT’S WORKS. 

136 Katie Stewart 10 

210 Young Musgrave 20 

391 The Primrose Path 20 

452 An Odd Couple 10 

475 Heart and Cross 10 

488 A Beleaguered City 10 

497 For Love and Life „ 20 

511 Squire Arden 20 

542 The Storv of Valentine and His Brother 20 

596 Caleb Field 10 

651 Madonna Mary 20 

665 The Fugitives 10 

680 The Greatest Heiress in England 26 

706 Earthbound 10 

775 The Queen (Illustrated) 10 

785 Orphans 10 

802 Phoebe, Junior. A Last Chronicle of Carlingford 20 

$75 No. 3 Grove Road. W 


ITT THE SEASIDE LIBRARY.— Ordinary Edition, 


MRS. OLIPHANT’S WORKS.— Continued. 

881 He That Will Not When He May 26 

919 May 20 

959 Miss Marjoribanks. Part 1 20 

959 Miss Marjoribanks. Part II 20 

1004 Harry Joscelyn 20 

1017 Carita 20 

1049 In Trust 20 

1215 Brownlow8 20 

1319 Lady Jane 10 

1396 Whiteladies $0 

1407 A Rose in June 10 

1449 A Little Pilgrim 10 

1547 It Was a Lover and His Lass 20 

1662 Salem Chapel 20 

1669 The Minister’s Wife. First half 20 

1669 The Minister’s Wife. Second half 20 


“ OUIDA’S ” WORKS. 

49 Granville de Yigne; or, Held in Bondage 20 

54 Under Two Flags 20 

55 In a Winter City 10 

56 Strathmore 20 

59 Chandos. 20 

61 Bebee; or, Two Little Wooden Shoes 10 

62 Folle-Farine 20 

71 Ariadne — The Story of a Dream 20 

181 Beatrice Bovilie 10 

211 Randolph Gordon 10 

230 Little Grand and the Marchioness 10 

241 Tricotrin 20 

249 Cecil Castlemaine’s Gage 10 

279 A Leaf in the Storm, and Other Tales 10 

281 Lady Marabout’s Troubles 10 

334 Puck 20 

377 Friendship 20 

379 Pascarel 20 

386 Signa 20 

389 Idalia 20 

563 A Hero’s Reward 10 

676 Umilta 10 

699 Moths 20 

791 Pipistrello 10 

864 Findelkind 10 

915 A Village Commune 20 

1025 The Little Earl 10 

1247 In Maremma 20 

1334 Bimbi 10 

1586 Frescoes 10 

1625 Wanda, Countess von Szalras 20 


TEE SEASIDE LIBRARY. - Ordinary Edition. 


JAMES PAYN’S WORKS. 

138 What He Cost Her 

299 By Proxy 

345 Halves 

358 Less Black Than We’re Painted 

369 Found Dead 

382 Gwendoline’s Harvest 

401 A Beggar on Horseback 

406 One of the Family 

485 At Her Mercy 

f|502 Under One Roof (Illustrated) 

602 Lost Sir Massingberd . • • 

646 Married Beneath Him • ■ 

687 Fallen Fortunes 

89? A Confidential Agent 

98l From Exile • 

1045 The Clyfifards of Clvffe 

1149 A Grape from a Thorn 

1193 High Spirits 

1267 For Cash Only 

1546 Kit: A Memory 

1524 Carlyon’s Year 

1652 A Woman’s Vengeance 

CHARLES READE’S WORKS. 

4 A Woman-Hater 

19 A Terrible Temptation 

21 Foul Play * 

24 44 It is Never Too Late to Mend ” 

31 Love Me Little, Love Me Long 

34 A Simpleton.' 

41 White Lies 

78 Griffith Gaunt 

86 Put Yourself in His Place 

112 Very Hard Cash 

203 The Cloister and the Hearth 

237 The Wandering Heir 

246 Peg Woffington 

270 The 

371 Christie Johnstone 

536 Jack of all Trades 

1204 Clouds and Sunshine 

1322 The Knightsbridge Mystery 

1390 Singleheart and Doubleface. A Matter-of-Fact Romance. 

W. CLARK RUSSELL’S WORKS. 

848 A Sailor’s Sweetheart 

1034 An Ocean Free Lance 

1339 The Wreck of the “ Grosvenor ” 

1373 My Watch Below; or, Yarns Spun When Off Duty 

1381 Auld Lang Syne 

1467 The 4 ‘ Lady Maud Schooner Yacht 

1653 A Sea Queen 


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cyi THE SEASIDE LIBBART. — Ordinary Edition. 


SIR WALTER SCOTT'S WORKS. 

39 Ivanhoe 20 

183 Kenilworth- 20 

196 Heart of Mid-Lothian 20 

593 The Talisman 20 

723 Guy Mannering 20 

857 Waverley. 20 

920 Rob Roy 20 

1007 Quentin Durward 20 

1082 Count Robert of Paris 20 

1275 Old Mortality 20 

1328 The Antiquary . 20 

1399 The Pirate 20 

1462 The Betrothed : A Tale of the Crusaders, and The Chroni- 
cles of the Canongate 20 

1598 Redgauntlet. A Tale of the Eighteenth Century 20 

1701 The Monastery 20 

1702 The Abbot (Sequel to “ The Monastery ”) 20 

EUGENE SUE S WORKS. 

129 The Wandering Jew. First half 20 

129 The Wandering Jew. Second half 20 

205 The Mysteries of Paris. First half 20 

205 The Mysteries of Paris. Second half 20 

800 De Rohan; or, The Court Conspirator 20 

835 Arthur 20 

1030 The Commander of Malta 20 

1540 Martin the Foundling; or, The Adventures of a Valet de 

Chambre. Vol. I 20 

1540 Martin the Foundling; or, The Adventures of aj Valet de 

Chambre. Vol. II 20 

1540 Martin the Foundling; or, The Adventures of a Valet de 

Chambre. Vol. Ill 20 

1590 Pride; or, The Duchess. First half 20 

1590 Pride; or. The Duchess. Second a half 20 

WM. M. THACKERAY’S WORKS. 

559 Vanity Fair - 20 

570 Lovel, the Widower 10 

580 Denis Duval 10 

582 Henry Esmond 20 

613 The Newcomes. Parti 20 

613 The Newcomes. Part II 20 

624 The Great Hoggarty Diamond. 10 

638 Pendennis. Parti 20 

638 Pendennis. Part II 20 

648 The Virginians. Part I 20 

648 The Virginians. Part II 20 

669 Adventures of Philip. Parti 20 

669 Adventures of Philip. Part II 20 

961 Barry Lyndon 10 

1597 Catherine; A Story. By Ikey Solomons, Esq., Junior., If 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. — Ordinary Edition. 




MRS. HENRY WOOD'S WORKS.— Continued. 

83 Verner’s Pride 20 

92 Mrs. Haliiburton’s Troubles 20 

106 The Master of Greylands 20 

115 Within the Maze 20 

124 Squire Trevlyn’s Heir 20 

143 The Haunted Tower 10 

220 George Canterbury's Will 20 

256 Lord Oakburn’s Daughters 20 

288 The Channings 20 

310 Roland Yorke 20 

328 The Shadow of Ashlydyat 20 

349 Elster’s Folly 20 

357 Red Court Farm 20 

365 Oswald Cray 20 

373 St* Martin’s Eve 20 

443 Pomerov Abbey ' 20 

467 Edina..".. 20 

508 Orville College 20 

914 Johnny Ludlow. Pari I 20 

914 Johnny Ludlow. Part II 20 

jf054 A Tale of Sin 10 

1076 Anne; or. The Doctor’s Daughter 10 

1094 Rose Lodge 10 

1117 Lost in the Post, and Other Tales 10 

fl28 Robert Ashton’s Wedding Day, and Other Tales 10 

>166 Court Netherleigh 20 

For sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address, post* 
i*ge free, on receipt of 12 cents for single numbers, and 25 cents for 
double numbers, by the publisher. Parties ordering by mail wiH 
please order by numbers. 

GEORGE MIJNRO, Publisher, 

17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New fort. 


P.O.Box 3751. 












THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. — Pocket Edition. 


207 Pretty Miss Neville. By M. Croker.. 15 

208 The Ghost of Charlotte Cray, and 

Other istories. Florence Marryat . . 10 

209 John Holdsworth, Chief Mate. By 

W. Clark Russell 10 

210 Readiana: Comments on Current 

Events. By Charles Reade 10 

211 The Octoroon. By Miss M. E. Braddon 10 

212 Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon. 

By Charles Lever (Complete in one 
volume) 30 

213 A Terrible Temptation. Chas. Reade 15 

214 Put Yourself in His Place. C. Reade. 20 

215 Not Like Other Girls. By Rosa Nou- 

pli pf fp Po PPV 

216 Foul Play. By Charies Reade and 

Dion Boucicault 15 

217 The Man She Cared For. By F. W. 

Robinson 15 

218 Agnes Sorel. By G. P. R. James — 15 

219 Lady Clare; or. The Master of the 

Forges. By Georges Olmet 10 

220 Which Loved Him Best? By Bertha 

M. Clay, author of “ Dora Thorne ” 10 

221 Cornin’ Thro’ the R}'e. By Helen B. 

Mathers 15 

222 The Sun-Maid. By Miss Grant 15 

223 A Sailor’s Sweetheart. By W. Clark 

Russell 15 

224 The Arundel Motto. Mary Cecil Hay 15 

225 The Giant’s Robe. Bj^ F. Anstey 15 

226 Friendship. By “ Ouida ” 20 

227 Nancy. By Rlioda Broughton 15 

228 Princess Napraxine. By “Ouida”.. 20 

229 Maid, Wife, or Widow? By Mrs. 

Alexander 10 

230 Dorothy Forster. By Walter Besant. 15 

231 Griffith Gaunt. By Charles Reade. . 15 

232 Love and Money; or, A Perilous Se- 

cret. By Charles Reade 10 

233 “I Say No;” or, the Love-Letter An- 

swered. Wilkie Collins 15 

234 Barbara; or, Splendid Misery. Miss 

M. E. Braddon 15 

235 “It is Never Too Late to Mend.” 

A Matter-of-Fact Romance. By 
Charles Reade 20 

236 Which Shall It Be? By Mrs. Alex- 

ander 20 

237 Repented at Leisure. By Bertha M. 

Clay, Author of “ Dora Thorne ” . . 15 

238 Pascarel. By “Ouida” 20 

239 Signa. By “Ouida” 20 

240 Called Back. By Hugh Conway..... 10 

241 The Baby’s Grandmother. By' L. B. 

Walford 10 

242 The Two Orphans. By D’Ennery. ... 10 

243 Tom Burke of “Ours.” First half. 

By Charles Lever 

243 Tom Burke of “ Ours.” Second half. 

By Charles Lever 

244 A Great Mistake. By the author of 

“ His Wedded Wife” 

245 Miss Tommy. By Miss Mulock 10 

246 A Fatal Dower. By the author of 

‘“His Wedded Wife ” 10 


[continued from third page OF COVER. I 


By Char- 


247 Tlie Ann oui er's Prentices. 

lotte M. Yonge 

248 The House on the Marsh. F. Warden 10 

249 “ Prince Charlie’s Daughter.” By 

the author of “ Dora Thorne ” iq 

250 Sunshine and Roses; or, Diana’s 

Discipline. By the author of “ Dora 
Thorne ” jq 

251 The Daughter of the Stars, and other 

tales. By Hugh CoiAvay io 

252 A Sinless Secret. By “Rita” io 

253 The Amazon By Carl Vosmaer io 

254 The Wife's Secret, and Fair but False. 

By the Author of “ Dora Thorne ’’ 10 

255 The Mystery. By Mrs. Henry Wood.. 15 

256 Mr. Smith : A Part of His Life. Bv 

L. B. Walford 15 

257 Beyond Recall. By Adeline Sergeant 10 

258 Cousins. By L. B. Walford 20 

259 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. A Sequel 
to “ The Count of Monte-Cristo,” 


10 
10 
20 

20 

20 


By Alexander Dumas 

260 Proper Pride. By B. M. Croker. . 

261 A Fair Maid. By F. W. Robinson . . ! ] 

262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. Part I 

By Alexander Dumas 

262 The Count of Monte Cristo. Part II. 

By Alexander Dumas 

263 Anlshmaelite. By Miss M. E. Braddon 15 

264 Pi6douche, A French Detective. By 

Fortune Du Boisgobey 10 

265 Judith Shakespeare: Her Love Af- 

fairs and Other Adventures. By 
William Black 15 

266 The Water-Babies. A Fairy Tale for 

a Land-Baby. By the Rev. Charles 
Kingsley 

267 Laurel Vane; or. The Girls’ Con- 

spiracy. Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller 

268 Lady Gay’s Pride; or, The Miser's 

Treasure. Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller 

269 Lancaster's Choice. By Mrs. Alex. 

McVeigh Miller 20 

270 The Wandering Jew. Parti. By Eu- 

gene Sue 

270 The Wandering Jew. Part II. By 

Eugene Sue |20 

271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part 1. By 

Eugene Sue 20 

271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part II. By 

Eugene Sue \ 20 

272 The Little Savage. Captain Marryat 10 

273 Love and Mirage; or, The Waiting on 

an Island. An Out-of-Door Ro- 
mance 10 

274 Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, Prin- 

cess of Great Britain and Ireland. 
Biographical Sketch and Letters. .. 

275 The Three Brides. By Charlotte M. 

Yonge 10 

276 Under the Lilies and Roses. By Flor- 

ence Marryat (Mrs. Francis Lean). . 10 

277 The Surgeon’s Daughters. By Mrs. 

Henry Wood. A Man of His Word. 
By W. E. Norris *. 10 

278 For Life and Love. By Alison 10 


10 


The above books are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address, postage pre- 
paid, by the publisher, on receipt of 12 cents for single numbers, 17 cents for special numbers, and 
25 cents for double numbers. Parties wishing the Pocket Edition of The Seaside Library must be 
careful to mention the Pocket Edition, otherwise the Ordinarv Edition will be sent. Address, 

GEORGE 1UI7NKO, Publisher. 

P. O. Box 3751. 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 





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